
m 




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The New Church: 



ITS NATURE AND WHEREABOUT. 



BEING 



A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE POPULAR THEORY, 

WITH SOME ILL USTRA TIONS OF ITS PRACTICAL 

TENDENCY AND LEGITIMATE FRUITS. 



BY 

B. F. BARRETT. 



1/61 



f-- 



PHILADELPHIA: 
CLAXTON, KEMSEN & HAFFELFINGEE, 

624, 626 & 628 Makket Street. 

1877, 










Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

CLAXTON, EEMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



«*& 



*■*■ 



-Xt-r^- 



J. PAGAN & 80N, * fe^HU 

8TERE0TYPERS, PHILAD'A. */$ 
sy. J* 



PHILADELPHIA 1 

COLLINS, PRINTER 



TO 
THE SMALL BUT STEADILY GROWING ARMY OF LIBERAL MINDS, 

who count love to the Lord and the neighbor of para- 
mount importance, and regard charity as the 
ground of fellowship and centre of 
unity among Christians, 



||lp little jjoltmie 



IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



in 



PBEFACE. 



TT is now nearly forty years since the author of the 
-*- present volume commenced the study of the writings 
of Swedenborg. Regarding those who had preceded 
him by several years in this study as much wiser than 
himself, it was natural that he should have adopted 
their view (which still continues to be the popular view) 
of the nature and whereabout of the New Jerusalem, 
without much personal thought or examination; and 
that he should consequently have withdrawn from the 
religious denomination with which he was then con- 
nected, and joined the new organization. But while he 
acted according to the light then vouchsafed him, and 
therefore feels no regret for the course he adopted, he 
now frankly confesses that he thinks that course was a 
mistaken one ; and that, with the higher wisdom and 
clearer views derived from a varied experience, a more 
mature understanding, and a more intimate acquaint- 
ance with the teachings of Swedenborg, he cannot and 
does not now approve of the step he was then induced 
to take. 

Believing, moreover, that if the arguments, quotations 

and illustrations contained in the present volume had 
1* V 



yi PREFACE. 

then been placed before him, they would have pre- 
vented him from taking the step which he now thinks 
was unwise and unnecessary, he humbly hopes that what 
he has here written may furnish some useful hints to 
others similarly situated, who are beginning to read 
the works of Swedenborg with more or less interest ; 
and possibly prevent some of them from following his 
example, by clearly opening up the truth on the sub- 
ject herein discussed, and pointing out the better way. 
Then the large majority of people belonging to the 
" New Church " organization (and it affords me pleas- 
ure to say, that among them are to be found some rare 
and beautiful types of Christian character) are inno- 
cently under the impression that this Church is an 
organized and visible institution. I say, innocently; 
for those to whom they have looked for instruction, 
have so taught them ; and the organs of religious 
opinion with which they are most familiar, have done 
everything they could to encourage and confirm them 
in this belief. Many of this class of persons, I doubt 
not, will rejoice to find that the New Church is much 
broader and more inclusive than they have hitherto 
supposed ; and will thank the author, when they read 
these pages, for the evidence here presented of the 
serious but popular misapprehension in which they have 
shared. And seeing the great mistake under which 
they have labored, they will henceforward, I doubt not, 



PREFACE. yii 

assume an attitude toward other denominations, which 
will be at once more kind, conciliatory and just, and 
will better exemplify the swaet and catholic spirit of 
the New Dispensation in which they believe. 

And so, by overcoming prejudices without and cor- 
recting mistakes within the organization commonly 
known as " the New Church," the author humbly hopes 
to accomplish something towards the removal of exist- 
ing barriers to the spread of precious truth, and to com- 
mend to all thoughtful and inquiring minds a system 
of theology as convincing to the understanding and as 
accordant with the teachings of reason and Scripture, 
as it is exalted, tolerant and inclusive in its spirit, and 
satisfactory to the purest and best cravings of the 
heart. 

In the first two chapters will be found a critical ex- 
amination of the arguments and illustrations in support 
of the popular theory of the New Church, presented in 
essays by two of the leading or representative men in 
the organization. The substance of these chapters (and 
with only occasional and slight modifications of the 
form) has been previously published ; the first in the 
Chicago New-Church Independent, and the second 
in the Boston New-Church Magazine. And as the 
theory of the New Church maintained in both the 
essays here reviewed, is substantially the same, the 
reader will see that the exigencies of the case imposed 



VI ii PREFACE. 

upon the reviewer the necessity of some repetition of 
quotations from Swedenborg — a repetition which might 
have been avoided if both papers had been prepared 
for the present work. But the line of argument is 
by no means the same in the two chapters; and the 
author prefers to allow the repetitions to stand in the 
volume, rather than mar the completeness or weaken 
the force of the argument in either review. 

Chapter IV. (with a few unimportant omissions, 
additions, and verbal alterations) was written in reply 
to some adverse criticisms of the author's theory of the 
New Church, which appeared in the London Intellectual 
Repository, the monthly organ of the English New 
Church Conference, some fifteen years ago. It was sent 
for publication in that magazine ; but its insertion was 
respectfully declined, and the manuscript returned at 
the author's request. The fact is only worthy of men- 
tion here, as one among many that might be given in 
illustration of the kind or degree of freedom which the 
recognized organs of the (so-called) New Church have 
practised and encouraged, and the manner in which 
the more liberal thinkers and writers among the re- 
ceivers of the new doctrines, have uniformly been 
treated. 

B. F. B. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. MR. REED'S IDEA OF THE NEW CHURCH CRITI- 
CALLY EXAMINED 13 

"The Church Hereafter" (from 1757) . . 17 
Continued Existence of Sects . , . .22 
What Swedenborg Means by the Church . 24 
The Nominal and the Keal Church . . 28 
Endless Diversity of State * . . .31 
The Specific Church . . . . . . 34 

Is the New Church " known by Doctrine " ? 37 
Doctrine not the Bond of Union . . .43 
Belief no Sure Index of Character . . 46 
The One Essential Doctrine . . . .47 

The Specific New Church 52 

Who Acknowledge the Divine Humanity . 55 
Variety in the New Church . . . .60 
to whom is the lord kevealed ? . . .62 
Increase of the New Church . . . .64 
Are all but Swedenborgians without the 

Gates? 66 

For what were the Wings Given? . . 68 
Conclusion . . 71 

II. MR. GILES 1 IDEA OF THE NEW CHURCH CARE- 
FULLY CONSIDERED 77 

Building the City Anew . . . . .78 
Mr. Giles' Illustrations in Conflict with his 

Theory 82 

ix 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

Appeals to the Sects in Justification of his 

View 91 

In Palpable Conflict with Swedenborg . 93 
In Conflict with well known Facts . . 95 
Swedenborg's Method of Building the New 

Jerusalem 98 

His Explicit Teaching on the Subject . . 100 
His Explanation of Kev. (chapter xii.) Ke- 

futes Mr. Giles' Theory .... 106 
His Illustrations in Conflict with Mr. Giles' 

Theory Ill 

Never Encouraged Separatism . . . 115 

III. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRACTICAL TEN- 

DENCY AND LEGITIMATE FRUITS OF 

THE POPULAR THEORY 120 

First Attempt to Organize the New Church. 122 
The "Select Meeting" in London, 1787 . . 124 
Sad Kesults that soon Followed . . . 127 
The Spirit of that London Movement Exem- 
plified ON THIS SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC . 129 

Unchurching other Christians . . .130 

More Unreasonable still . . . . . 138 

The Lowest Depth of Sectarianism . . 144 

Dishonest Handling of Swedenborg . . 147 

Hindrances that ought to be Kemoved . . 156 

The Wail of a Burdened Spirit . . . 157 

IV. WHERE AND WHAT IS THE NEW CHURCH? 162 

Our Spiritual Mother 162 

Names "in the Lamb's Book of Life" . . 170 
The Kingdom of the Lord . . . .172 
Christians who are in Great Falsities . 175 
The Seven Churches in Asia .... 177 
Distinction between the Old and the New 

Organizations 182 

Non-Secession in Sweden 183 

Mr. Clowes' Idea of the New Church . . 186 
Mr. Parsons' Idea of the New Church . . 191 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE 

V. THE NEW HEA VEN AND TEE NEW EARTH . 194 
In what does the Newness Consist? . . 196 
Newness in Beligious Beliefs .... 198 

Newness of Spirit 201 

Newness in Human Affairs .... 203 

VI. A PRACTICAL QUESTION . . . . .205 



The works of Swedenborg quoted in the present volume 
are referred to under the following 

ABBREVIATIONS. 

A. C, which stand for Arcana Coelestia. 



Ap. Ex. or 


A.E., " 


Apocalypse Explained. 


A. R., 




Apocalypse Revealed. 


N. J. D., 




New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine. 


D.P., 




Divine Providence. 


T. C. R., 




True Christian Religion. 



Xll 



The New Ohtjech; 

IT8 NATURE AND WHEREABOUT. 



MR. REED'S IDEA OF THE NEW CHURCH CRITI- 
CALLY EXAMINED. 



' * rpHE Future of the New Church " is the title of 
-i- a neat pamphlet of forty pages from the pen of 
Mr. Sampson Eeed. The title-page tells us that it is an 
.Address read by the author " at a social religious meet- 
ing of the Boston Society of the New Jerusalem/' and 
" published by request." The name of this'writer will 
be, to all who have read " The Growth of the Mind," 
a sufficient guarantee that the subject herein treated 
has been handled in a manner to interest those who are 
interested in the writings of Swedenborg. And that 
much is to be found in the pamphlet which will meet 
with a cordial acceptance among this class of people, is 
what every one would expect. 

But underlying the main thought, and running all 
through the pamphlet, there is what we regard as an 
utterly mistaken conception of the nature and where- 
about of the New Church signified by the New Jeru- 
salem. Mr. Reed holds that this Church is an organ- 
ized and visible body of people, as much so as the 
2 13 



14 THE NEW CHURCH. 

Roman Catholic Church, or any one of the existing 
Protestant sects. This conception reveals itself in such 
expressions as the following : " In England and in the 
United States, the New Church has slowly but steadily 
increased ; " " But though the New Church, as yet, has 
appeared in only small numbers ; " " The reason why 
the New Church has hitherto made so little progress," 
etc. — measuring its progress, of course, by the numer- 
ical increase of those who profess to receive its doctrines ; 
and with still more clearness in a paragraph toward 
the close of the pamphlet, which commences with these 
words : 

" Strange to say, it is supposed by some that the New 
Church, differing as it does so essentially from every 
denomination of the former Church, should not exist 
as a separate organization, and that hereafter, instead 
of increasing, it will be merged in other Christian 
denominations." 

This idea of the New Jerusalem as an organized and 
visible body, is not peculiar to Mr. Reed. It has been 
the prevailing idea among the students of Swedenborg 
for nearly a hundred years, and is probably held by 
a large majority of them at the present day. And it 
may be regarded, therefore, as singular presumption in 
me to call in question a view which has had the sup- 
port of so many persons, and some of them so intelli- 
gent and venerated. I should so regard it myself, and 
should shrink instinctively from the task, did I not see 
clearly that this view is utterly contrary to the teachings 
of the authority we all respect ; and that the view I 
advocate is as clearly in accord with these teachings. 

Besides, I believe that the prevalent error on this 



MB. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 15 

subject, will be found, on careful reflection, to be the 
prolific source of nearly all the strifes, disagreements, 
alienations and separations among the receivers of the 
heavenly doctrines. For if the New Church be a 
visible body, consisting exclusively of those who 
acknowledge the mission and accept the teachings of 
Swedenborg, then admission into this body is admission 
into the New Church ; and exclusion therefrom is ex- 
clusion from this Church. The body may offer such 
terms of admission as it (or the majority) may think 
proper. It may require submission to whatever rites 
it chooses to adopt ; to a second or a third baptism ; to 
confirmation administered by a bishop or archbishop. 
It may require belief in a self-perpetuating priestly 
caste, with its various grades consecrated according to 
the manner prescribed by such caste. It may multiply 
ceremonies ad libitum, and declare them essential to 
admission into the New Jerusalem which it claims to 
be. And no one familiar with church history, or with 
the history of our soi-disant New Church, will pretend 
that such things are by any means improbable. 

But there will be, as there ever have been, some 
earnest protestants. And what will the organization 
say of these ? Why, that they are the enemies of the 
New Church ; disturbers of its peace ; hinderers of its 
progress ; haters of our spiritual Zion. Hence strifes, 
commotions, alienations and divisions. 

It is not difficult, I think, to trace nearly all the 
difficulties which have arisen in the organized or nominal 
New Church, to the mistaken idea which so many have 
formed as to what and where the New Church really is. 
This consideration alone, therefore, ought sufficiently to 



16 THE NEW CHURCH. 

justify a patient and thorough examination of the sub- 
ject in the light of the heavenly doctrines. 

But to guard against possible misapprehension, let 
me say here in the outset that I know of no one who is 
opposed to, or who disbelieves in, the organization of 
clubs, societies, associations or larger bodies, for the 
special purpose of studying, teaching and propagating 
the heavenly doctrines. I appreciate the importance 
of such organizations, and would remove as far as pos- 
sible every obstacle to their multiplication, and to their 
increase in numbers and in strength. And when the 
receivers of the new doctrines become sufficiently numer- 
ous in any community to support the public preaching 
of them, it may be expedient and advisable for them to 
unite for that purpose. But this would depend on cir- 
cumstances — on the measure of freedom vouchsafed 
them in the old organizations, and the probable effect 
which the formation of a new one would have in pro- 
moting or retarding the spread of the new doctrines in 
that community. And of this, the receivers themselves 
must be the judges in each particular case. But I 
would not call these organizations in the aggregate the 
New Jerusalem ; for this would be a misapplication 
and falsification of the term, and could hardly fail to 
deceive and mislead. Suppose we were living under a 
monarchical form of civil government, and a hundred 
societies imbued with republican ideas were organized 
throughout the country for the purpose of propagating 
these ideas, and if possible securing their ultimate 
triumph ; who would think of calling these hundred 
societies, the government, country, or republic ? Yet 
why not, if it be proper to call a hundred (more or 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 17 

less) societies imbued with the new religious ideas, and 
organized for their promulgation, the New Jerusalem ? 
But the question is one to be settled by a higher 
authority than any reasonings of our own ; and to that 
authority I appeal — and to its decision shall cheer- 
fully bow. 

"TEE CHURCH HEREAFTER" (from. 1757). 

Mr. Eeed's pamphlet opens with a quotation from 
Swedenborg's work on the Last Judgment, in which he 
speaks of the state of the then future Church as fol- 
lows: 

" But as for the state of the Church, this it is which 
will be dissimilar hereafter; it will be similar, indeed, 
in the outward form, but dissimilar in the inward. 
Churches will exist, to outward appearance divided as 
heretofore ; their doctrines will be taught as heretofore ; 
and the same religions as now will exist among the 
Gentiles. But henceforth the man of the Church will 
be in a more free state of thinking on matters of faith, 
that is, on spiritual things which relate to heaven, be- 
cause spiritual liberty has been restored to him. . . . 

" I have had various converse with the angels con- 
cerning the state of the Church hereafter. They said 
. . . that they do know that the slavery and captivity 
in which the man of the Church was formerly, is re- 
moved, and that from restored liberty he can now bet- 
ter perceive interior truths if he wills to percgive them, 
and thus can be made more internal if he wills it." 

This was written immediately after the Last Judg- 
ment. The first Christian Dispensation had come to 
its end^ and the New Dispensation had commenced 
The old or first Christian Church had lived out its ap- 
2* B 



18 THE NEW CHURCH. 

pointed time and reached its consummation. Its very- 
existence had terminated. It was no more — and of 
course has had no existence since that time. A New 
Age and therefore a New Church then commenced. 
The vast multitude who had for centuries been in the 
intermediate state or world of spirits, and whose influ- 
ence, by reason of the dire falsities in which they were 
immersed, had so long operated to darken and enthrall 
the minds of men on earth, had been explored and 
judged by the all-revealing light of truth — and had 
therefore been removed, each one to his own place ; the 
good, to the new angelic heaven which was then formed 
from those who had lived on earth in charity and faith 
since the coming of the Lord, together with all who had 
died in infancy and childhood ; and the evil, to their 
congenial society in the hell of devils. 

As a consequence of such judgment in, and removal 
from, the world of spirits, a New Age commenced. 
A new condition of our terrestrial humanity was inau- 
gurated. The spiritual thraldom in which the human 
mind had been so long held, was measurably broken. 
An influx of clearer and ever increasing light from out 
the new angelic heaven commenced. * The dense clouds 
of ignorance, superstition and error which had so long 
enveloped the moral world, began to disperse. It was 
the dawn of a new and more glorious Day for human- 
ity. Accordingly in his " Continuation " of the treatise 
above quoted, Swedenborg says : 

"All enlightenment comes to man from the Lord 
through heaven, and enters by an internal way. So 
long as there were congregations of such spirits [in the 
world of spirits, or intermediate state] between heaven 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 19 

and the world, or between the Lord and the church, 
mankind could not be enlightened. It was as when a 
sunbeam is intercepted by a black interposing cloud ; 
or as when the sun is eclipsed and its light arrested by 
the interjacent moon." (n. 11.) 

" After the Last Judgment was accomplished there 
was joy in heaven, and light also in the world of spirits 
[a world, remember, in close connection with people 
here on earth, and composed of a mixed society like 
our own] ; . . . because the infernal societies which were 
removed, had [previously] been interposed like clouds 
which darken the earth. A similar light also then 
arose [or began to arise] in men in the world, giving 
them new enlightenment." (Ibid. 30.) 

" The state of the world and of the Church before the 
Last Judgment, was as evening and night ; but after it, 
as morning and day. When the light of truth does 
not appear, there is a state of the church in the world 
like evening and night ; but when the light of truth 
appears and the truth is received, there is a state of 
the church in the world like morning and day." 
(Ibid. 13.) 

And it is important to remember that every one is 
spiritually enlightened when he reads the Word, ac- 
cording to the nature of his ends and aims in life, or 
according to the character of his ruling love. And 
every one who is in the good of life, or in the effort to 
think, feel and act right, is far more enlightened now 
through the medium of the Word, than he could have 
been before the Last Judgment. And we are told that 
" all enlightenment comes to man from the Lord, and 
enters by an internal way ; " and that " such as a man's 
good is, such is his enlightenment." Speaking of that 
spiritual enlightenment which all the good receive 



20 THE NEW CHURCH. 

through the operation of the Spirit when they read the 
Word, Swedenborg calls it " a revelation not made by 
a sonorous voice, but inwardly in man," and says of it : 

" This revelation is made by illumination of the in- 
ternal sight which is the understanding, when a man 
who is in the affection of truth from good, reads the 
Word. On such occasion illumination is effected by the 
light of heaven which is from the Lord as a sun there. 
The understanding is illumined by this light as the ex- 
ternal sight of the eye is by the light from the sun of 
the world. When the understanding is illumined by 
this Divine light, it then perceives that to be true which 
is true, inwardly acknowledges and as it were sees it. 
Such is the revelation which those receive who are in 
the affection of truth from good, when they read the 
Word." — A. C. 8780. See also, n. 4214, 7012, 8521, 
8694. 

The above statements by Swedenborg and his pre- 
dictions respecting the then future state of the Church 
and the world, viewed in connection with recent his- 
tory and well known facts, are, indeed, " remarkable." 
Since the time of the Last Judgment, as Mr. Keed truly 
says, " there has been a wonderful change in the world, 
such as never appeared before. As was foretold, there 
has been far greater freedom, and, with this, far greater 
rationality, which is manifest in both civil and ecclesi- 
astical affairs. This influence extends not only to the 
Christian world, but to Jews, Mahometans and Gen- 
tiles." 

As to the newness, then, or the nature and the cause 
thereof, there seems to be no difference between Mr. 
Eeed and myself. I think we perfectly agree on this 
point. And I should infer that we did not differ in 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EX A MIXED. 21* 

regard to the Church, or the New Church, if I were to 
judge merely from the words immediately following 
this paragraph. But other parts of the pamphlet for- 
bid such a conclusion. The words are : 

" But this is not the New Church. It is only the 
preparation for the Church. Humanity is not regen- 
erated in the mass. It is only where this new influence 
is met by man, and he fulfills his part of the covenant, 
that the Church is established." 

It certainly appears from these words as if Mr. Reed 
believes that the New Church consists exclusively of 
regenerate or regenerating men and women ; that it is 
established nowhere but in the hearts of those who re- 
ceive, and permit themselves to be inwardly swayed 
and moulded by, the " new influence " from heaven ; — 
only where man " fulfills his part of the covenant " by 
religious obedience to the divine commandments, or to 
the divine truth as he understands it. And he would 
not, I am sure, think of maintaining (for he cannot 
believe anything so palpably false), that this class of 
people is confined exclusively to Swedenborgians ; that 
there are no regenerating persons in other denomina- 
tions — none who worthily meet " this new influence " 
which is everywhere descending from out the opening 
heavens. If not, then he must admit that the New 
Church is broader and more inclusive than the sect 
which bears this name ; — that its members, indeed, are 
scattered among all the sects, yes, and outside of them 
all. Nor would he, I think, be willing to take the 
responsibility of deciding who are regenerating men 
and women — who really love the Lord and their 
neighbor — within the circle of his own acquaintance ; 



22 THE NEW CHURCH, 

nor admit that so grave a question is within the power 
or prerogative of any one except Him who alone knows 
the thoughts and intents of the heart. If not, then the 
New Church as defined in the words just quoted, is not 
and never can be an organized and visible body. The 
obvious meaning of these words, therefore, is evidently 
not what the author intended ; for it is seen to be in 
direct conflict with other parts of his pamphlet, and 
with the theory in regard to the New Church which it 
seems to have been written mainly to uphold and 
defend. 

CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF SECTS. 

Turning now to the paragraphs from the Last Judg- 
ment, with which the pamphlet before us opens, can 
there be any doubt as to what Church Swedenborg re- 
fers to when he speaks of "the Church hereafter," or 
the man of the then future Church ? and when he says 
of this Church, "it will be similar indeed in the out- 
ward form, but dissimilar in the inward " ? That is to say, 
different sects would continue to exist, holding and teach- 
ing different doctrines, as they had hitherto done ; but 
by reason of the greater religious liberty secured by the 
Last Judgment, they would all be able to think and 
inquire more freely concerning spiritual things, and " to 
perceive interior truths if they desired to perceive them," 
in a manner and to a degree that they had not before 
been able to do. Can there be any doubt that his 
reference here is to the New Church and not to the 
Old f — yes, and to the New Church in its specific sense, 
or in other words " the Church where the Word is, and 
where the Lord is thereby known " ? For at the time 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 23 

he was writing there was no Old Church. It had come 
to an end. It had ceased to exist.- And he was speak- 
ing, we observe, not of the former or consummated 
Church, nor of the Church as it was then, but of " the 
Church hereafter" He clearly means by the Church 
in these passages, the one general and visible Christian 
Church — for there can be but one general Church on 
earth at a time. His meaning is identical with that 
expressed elsewhere by the words " the churches in the 
Christian world," that is, all Protestant Churches or 
denominations in the aggregate — " where the Lord is 
worshiped and the Word is read." (N. J. D. 8.) These, 
similar to what they had been in their external and 
visible form but " dissimilar internally," were what he 
meant by the visible Church that was to be — "the 
Church hereafter." And, certainly, with the new 
spiritual freedom vouchsafed it, with its new and greatly 
augmented spiritual perceptions, with the new and in- 
creased influx of light and life consequent upon the 
Last Judgment, no one, unless bent on maintaining 
some theory of his own, can for a moment suppose that 
Swedenborg here refers to any other Church than the 
New Church. 

And it is equally clear, that he means by " the Church 
hereafter," no single denomination or separate organi- 
zation of Christians distinguished by their peculiar doc- 
trinal beliefs — no such body of people as Mr. Keed 
and his school would have us believe constitute the New 
Church. For had this been his meaning, he certainly 
would not have spoken of it as composed of churches 
or denominations " to outward appearance divided," as 
they had previously been ; holding and teaching differ- 



24 THE NEW CHURCH. 

ent doctrines, too, as they had hitherto done ; yet " in 
their inward form," that is, in their real spiritual char- 
acter and condition, " dissimilar " to what they had 
been. Such language would never have been used by 
Swedenborg when speaking of " the Church hereafter/' 
had he meant by this Church any particular body of 
believers distinguished from all others by their manner 
of understanding and interpreting the written Word. 

Two things, then, may be considered as settled by a 
careful examination and fair interpretation of the lan- 
guage cited from the closing paragraphs of the treatise 
on the Last Judgment; 1st. That Swedenborg means 
by " the Church hereafter " of which he there speaks, 
the New Church and not the Old — not the real and 
invisible, but the nominal and visible Church. 2d. 
That this New Church would not be confined exclu- 
sively to any particular sect or class of believers, but 
would embrace all the various sects in Christendom, 
whose internal quality would undergo a decided change, 
while their outward form would still continue. 

And how fully this conclusion is justified by what 
we meet with elsewhere in the writings of this illumined 
author, and how palpably at variance with Sweden- 
borg's idea of the New Church is that of Mr. Reed and 
his school, will be shown as we proceed with our exami- 
nation. 



WHAT SWEDENBORG MEANS BY THE CHURCH 

We come now to the consideration of the meaning 
of the term Church as employed by Swedenborg. When 
we have fully settled this, we shall have no difficulty 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 25 

in understanding what and where the New Church is, 
of which he so often speaks. 

And we find there 'are two senses, and only two, in 
which he uses this term ; and they are substantially the 
same as those in which other distinguished writers on 
theology have long been in the habit of using it. He 
sometimes means by the Church the entire body of 
Christian believers, or the aggregate of the churches or 
societies in Christendom organized for social worship 
and for instruction in spiritual things. This is the 
visible church consisting of a mixed multitude, some 
good and some evil ; and is typified in Scripture by the 
wheat and the tares which the same infallible authority 
tells us should be permitted to grow together until the 
time of harvest. It is in this sense that he uses it when 
he speaks of certain persons being in the Church, who 
live wicked lives, and who have, therefore, nothing of 
the church in themselves. Thus he says, A. C, n. 3267 : 
" They who know truths which are called articles of 
belief, and do not live in charity or in good, although 
they are in the Church as being born there, still are not 
of the church, inasmuch as they have nothing of the 
church in them, that is, nothing of good to which truth 
may be conjoined." (See also A. C. 3963, 7317, 7502, 
7554.) 

But in the sense in which he generally uses the word, 
he means by the Church all the good people in Chris- 
tendom — all who live in charity and mutual love, and 
are therefore internally conjoined to the Lord and asso- 
ciated with the angels. This is the real but invisible 
Church — invisible, because its limits_ cannot be defined 
or clearly seen by man. It depends on the state of the 
3 



26 THE NEW CHURCH. 

heart — the governing motive and purpose of one's life. 
And as these are known only to the Lord, therefore He 
alone knows where this church is, or of whom it is com- 
posed. Consequently it cannot be organized, or pre- 
sented in a visible and embodied form to the eyes of 
men. Sometimes it is called by Swedenborg the spe- 
cific Church to distinguish it from the Church universal 
which includes all the good people outside of Christen- 
dom as well as in it. 

Then there are several varieties in this Church, des- 
ignated in general by such terms as internal and ex- 
ternal, celestial and spiritual. But one variety, how- 
ever inferior, is as truly a part of the church as another, 
just as the hand or foot belongs to the body and makes 
a part of it as truly as the head or heart. And in each 
variety there is endless diversity, just as there is in the 
faces and characters of persons belonging to the same 
nationality — just as there is in all the works of God. 
And for any one of these varieties or fractional parts 
thereof, however superior to the others in character or 
intelligence, to assume to be the church to the exclusion 
of all the rest, would be as preposterous and arrogant 
as for the head or eye to assume to be the human body, 
unmindful of the importance or existence of the other 
parts, and of its own vital connection with them. 

To cite here a few passages in illustration of Sweden- 
borg's use of the word Church in the sense of which I 
am now speaking : — 

" It can in no case be said that heaven is without 
one, but that it is within him/' (H. H. 54.) " Love to 
the Lord and love toward the neighbor constitute the 
life of heaven in man." (N. J. D. 237.) " That which 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 27 

constitutes heaven in man, also constitutes the church 
in him ; for as love and faith constitute heaven, so like- 
wise do they constitute the church." (Ibid. 241.) " The 
church is in man and not out of him ; and the church 
at large consists of the men in whom the church is." — 
" The same may be said of the church as of heaven, for 
the church is the Lord's heaven on earth." — "A man 
who is a church, is a heaven in the least form after the 
image of the greatest." (H. H. 57 and notes.) " Every 
man is such [or of such a character] as is the ruling 
principle of his life." — " The ruling or governing love 
with every one, is in each and every particular, of his 
life, thus in all things of his thought and will." (Notes 
to H. H. 58.) — " The church of the Lord, like the king- 
dom of the Lord in the heavens, has its grounds solely 
in love and charity." (A. C. 809.) 

And throughout his writings Swedenborg makes right 
feeling and right living, or love to the Lord and charity 
toward the neighbor, the essential constituents of the 
church as they are of heaven ; for what constitutes 
heaven, constitutes the church likewise. And these 
constituents in their various degrees of purity, exalta- 
tion and strength, exist among all peoples and nations. 
Accordingly, speaking of the church universal, he says : 

u The Lord's church is spread throughout the whole 
world ; and yet it is one." (A. C. 8152.) " The societies 
scattered throughout the whole world, consisting of those 
who are in love to the Lord and charity toward the 
neighbor, are collected by the Lord that they, too, may 
represent one man as do the societies in heaven. These 
societies are not only within the Church [i. e., the specific 
Church — ' where the Word is, and the Lord is thereby 
known '] but also out of it ; and taken together thev 



28 THE NEW CHURCH. 

are called the Lord's church scattered, and collected 
from the good in the whole world, which is also called 
a communion. This communion or church is the Lord's 
kingdom on earth conjoined to His kingdom in the 
heavens, and thus to the Lord himself." — Ibid. 7396. 

Again : — showing where and what the general Church 
is, or who constitute it, Swedenborg says : 

" Inasmuch as Israel is the celestial-spiritual man, 
thus the internal, Israel is also the internal spiritual 
church. For it is the same thing whether we say the 
spiritual mtm or the spiritual church, because the spirit- 
ual man individually is a church [in the smallest form] ; 
and many such men constitute the church in general. 
If man individually were not a church, there would be 
no church in general. A congregation in general [i. e., 
a visible body of people] is what is commonly called a 
church ; but to make it a church it is necessary that 
every individual in the congregation be a church ; for 
every general [or larger form] implies parts similar to 
itself." — A. C. 4292. 



THE NOMINAL AND THE REAL CHURCH. 

In this passage, and often elsewhere, Swedenborg dis- 
tinguishes as clearly as language can, between the real 
or invisible church, and the congregation or visible 
body which he says is commonly called a church, but is 
not such unless every individual belonging to it be him- 
self a church, or have within him the essential con- 
stituents of the church. And Mr. Keed himself, I pre- 
sume, would hardly be willing to affirm, as his sincere 
conviction, that every individual member of our New 
Church organization, or of every society belonging to 
it, is himself a church. He could not affirm this with- 



ME. HEED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 29 

out knowing the internal quality or ruling love of every 
individual. 

The same thought is often repeated by Swedenborg, 
though in a form somewhat varied. And as I desire 
to bring the question under consideration rigidly and 
severely to the test of his teachings, I trust I shall be 
pardoned for multiplying quotations. 

" The sons of Israel represent the church ; for the 
church is the church by virtue of spiritual good and of 
the truths thence derived. He who is not in spiritual 
good, that is, in the good of charity, and in spiritual 
truths, that is, the truths of faith, is not of the church, 
notwithstanding his being born within it [that is, in a 
country where the Word is, and the Lord is thereby 
known]. For the whole heavenly kingdom of the Lord 
is in the good of love and faith ; and unless the church 
be in like good, it cannot be a church, because it is not 
conjoined with heaven ; for the church is the Lord's 
kingdom on earth. — Every one who lives in the good 
of charity and faith, is a church and kingdom of the 
Lord ; and hence also he is called the temple and like- 
wise the house of God. The church in general is con- 
stituted of those who are churches in particular, how- 
ever remote they are from each other as to their place 
of abode." — A. C. 6637. 

" They alone are of the church, in whom the church 
is ; and the church is in those who are in the affection 
of truth for the sake of truth, and in the affection of 
good for the sake of good ; who are, therefore, in love 
toward the neighbor and in love to God ; for the neighbor 
is good and truth, and also is God, since good and truth 
are of God, thus are God with them. — They who are 
not such are not of the church, notwithstanding they 
may be in the church " [that is, in the visible body so 
denominated]. — Ibid. 10. 310. 

" Spiritual good, represented by Israel, is the good of 
a* 



30 THE NEW CHURCH. 

truth, that is, truth in will and act. This truth or this 
good of truth appertaining to man, causes him to be a 
church. When truth is implanted in the will — which 
is perceived by this circumstance, that a man is affected 
with truth for the sake of an end, that he may live ac- 
cording to it — then there is internal good and truth. 
When a man is in this good and truth, the kingdom of 
the Lord is in him ; consequently he is a church and, 
together with those of a like character, constitutes the 
church in general." — Ibid, 5826. 

" The church is never predicated of the intellect, but 
invariably of the will ; for the scientific or rational prin- 
ciple of faith by no means constitutes the church or the 
man of the church, these being formed by charity which 
belongs to the will, from which is derived all that is 
essential." — Ibid. 809. 

And many pages might be cited, of passages similar 
to the above, all going to show that the true church (or 
what makes it) is within men ; that it is the Lord's king- 
dom on earth, consisting exclusively of regenerating 
persons, or of such as have begun to shun evils as sins 
against God, and to obey truth as they understand it 
from a religious principle ; that it is unknown to men 
who or where all these people are, and therefore this 
church is said to be invisible ; consequently it can never 
be organized, or presented as a visible body of people — 
for the good can never be all separated from the wicked 
here on earth, since' no one can tell precisely who or 
where they are. 

It will be seen from some of the paragraphs here 
quoted, that Swedenborg clearly recognizes the distinc- 
tion between the visible or nominal and the invisible or 
real church, when he speaks of certain persons being in 
the church as being born there, yet not of it but out of 



MR. REED'S VIE W OF IT EXAMINED. 31 

it, that is, out of the real church. They are in and 
make a part of the visible body — the " congregation 
which is commonly called the church " ; but not having 
in their hearts the spirit of the Lord or the life of 
charity, they do not belong to the true and invisible 
church. They make no part of the mystical body of 
Christ. While in the nominal church, therefore, ob- 
serving the sacraments, reading the Word, understand- 
ing and intellectually receiving its teachings, they are 
nevertheless out of the true church and constitute no 
portion thereof. 

ENDLESS DIVERSITY OF STATE. 

• 

Then we should remember that there is endless di- 
versity of state in each of these varieties. Among those, 
for example, who constitute the internal church, all are 
not internal in the same degree. Some have more in- 
telligence, broader views, deeper intuitions, purer and 
more ardent love than others. Some have clearer per- 
ceptions of the spiritual meaning of the Word than 
others, and are more open to the influence of the angelic 
heavens. And the same is true of those who constitute 
the external church. But notwithstanding this diver- 
sity, they are all alike members of the one church. 
They who compose its external belong to the church 
and make a part of it, as certainly as they who consti- 
tute its internal. The degrees of enlightenment and the 
degrees of goodness are without number even in heaven ; 
and the same is true of the church which is the Lord's 
heaven on earth. Our neighbor's good may be very 
inferior both in kind and in degree to our own ; or the 
truth he holds may be less exalted and less pure than 



32 THE NEW CHURCH. 

ours. But he may for all that belong to the Lord's 
church as truly as ourselves. 

The clear and frequent recognition by Swedenborg 
of the endless diversity of state both in heaven and in 
the church, is a marked feature of his teachings, and 
one which places them far in advance of those of every 
other writer in point of reasonableness and genuine 
catholicity. To cite a few passages by way of illus- 
tration : — 

" A church, in order to be a church, must be both in- 
ternal and external ; for there are some who are in the 
internal of the church, and others who are in its exter- 
nal. The former are few, but the latter numerous. 
Nevertheless where the internal church is, the external 
must be also, for the internal of the church cannot be 
separated from its external ; and where the external 
church is, the internal must be also." — A. C. 6587. 

" They who are in the externals of the church, are 
said to be in simple good, and believe the Word merely 
in its literal sense, each according to his apprehension, 
and who live according to those things which they be- 
lieve, that is, who are in good according to its quality 
from truths." —Ibid. 6775. 

" The men of the internal church are they who have 
qualified their good by interior truths, such as are those 
of the internal sense of the Word ; . . [and conse- 
quently] are in superior intelligence and wisdom to 
those who are of the external church." — Ibid. 7840. 

But they who compose the external are as truly a 
part of the church, and as necessary to its complete- 
ness, as they who constitute its internal. Both classes 
are alike essential to the very existence of the church. 
But the varieties, again, in each of these divisions, are 
more than can be numbered. 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 33 

" In the Lord's kingdom the varieties are innumerable 
as to goods and truths, notwithstanding they all consti- 
tute but one heaven ; for the varieties are so numerous, 
that one society is in no case altogether like another, 
that is, in the same good and truth. Oneness in heaven 
is constituted of several various things so arranged by 
the Lord as to be in concord with each other ; w T hich 
concord or harmony of several things is impressed by 
the Lord in consequence of their all having relation to 
Him. The case herein is like that of the organs, mem- 
bers and viscera of the body, no one of which is alto- 
gether like another, but all are various ; and yet they 
make one in consequence of their all having relation to 
one soul, and thereby to heaven, and thus to the Lord ;. 
for whatever is unconnected with Him is nothing." — 
Ibid. 3241. 

And as it is with heaven in respect to variety, so also 
with the church. 

" The case is similar with respect to the Lord's church, 
because the kingdom of the Lord in the earths is the 
church which acts in unity with his kingdom in the 
heavens. . . . They who are in love to the Lord and in 
love toward the neighbor constitute the province of the 
heart in the Grand Man ; and they who are in charity 
and thence in faith from the Lord, constitute the prov- 
ince of the lungs." — A. C. 9276. 

And that it is the church in Christendom here referred 
to, which Swedenborg elsewhere calls " the church specif- 
ically," and which is the church to which he generally 
refers when he uses the term by itself unaccompanied 
by any qualifying epithet, is plain from the following, 
which occurs in the same number as the paragraph just 
quoted : 

" The heart of the Grand Man, that is, of heaven 
and the church, is constituted of those who are in love 

C 



34 THE NEW CHURCH. 

to the Lord and in love toward the neighbor ; . . . but 
the lungs in the Grand Man, or in heaven and the 
church, is constituted of those who from the Lord are in 
charity toward the neighbor, and thence in faith ; . . . 
but the rest of the viscera and members in that Grand 
Man are constituted of those who are in external goods 
and truths, — whereby internal truths and goods may 
be introduced. Now as the heart first flows-in into the 
lungs, and thence into the viscera and members of the 
body, so also does the Lord flow through the good of 
love into internal truths, and through these into external 
truths and goods. From these considerations it may be 
seen that there must needs be a church on the earth, 
and that without it the human race would perish ; for 
it would be as it is with an individual when he dies, 
when the heart and lungs cease to act. For this reason 
also it is provided of the Lord that there should always 
be a church in the earths, where the Lord is revealed 
by means of the Divine Truth which is from Him, which 
Divine Truth in our earth is the Word." — A. C. 9277. 

THE SPECIFIC CHURCH. 

Here Swedenborg refers to the church in Christen- 
dom, or where the Word is ; in other words, to " the 
specific church." And this is the church that he usually 
refers to when he uses the term without qualification. 
And we see that he makes this specific church to consist 
of those only who are in love to the Lord and in charity 
toward the neighbor. They are his friends and follow- 
ers — the good people throughout Christendom — those 
who are internally conjoined to Him through religious 
obedience to his precepts. For He says : " Ye are my 
friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." 
• And in hundreds of other places where he speaks of 
the specific church, Swedenborg employs the term in 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 35 

precisely this sense, meaning by it all the good people 
in Christian countries ; just as he means by the universal 
church all the good people throughout the world, in- 
cluding those in Christendom as well as those outside. 
This shows us that the specific church, in the sense in 
which he uses it, is invisible — "known only to the 
Lord " — in like manner as the universal church. It 
differs from this latter only in being more interior and 
less comprehensive. To cite two or three passages by 
way of confirmation : 

"It is generally believed that the church exists 
wherever the Word is and the Lord is known. Whereas 
the church consists only of those who from the heart 
acknowledge the Divine of the Lord, learn truths from 
Him by the Word, and do them. No others form any 
part of the church whatever" — Ap. Ex. 388. 

Certainly no one can doubt that the author is here 
speaking of " the specific church." — Equally explicit 
is the following : 

" The church is the Lord's kingdom on earth. That 
it is called the church is no,t from the circumstance of 
its having the Word and doctrines thence derived ; nor 
from the circumstance of the Lord being known and 
the sacraments administered there. But it is the church 
from this circumstance : that they live according to the 
Word, or according to doctrine derived from the AVord, 
which doctrine is the rule of life. They who are not 
such, are not of the church, but are out of it." — A. C. 
6637. 

" Those who say they are of the church, who are in 
the affection of truth and not in the good of truth, that 
is, who do not live according to' the truth, are much 
deceived. They are out of the church notwithstanding 
their admission into the congregation of the church 
[that is, into the visible body called the church] ; for 



36 THE NEW CHURCH. 

they are in the affectiou of evil with which truth can- 
not be conjoined." — A. C. 3963. See also n. 4292 ; T. 
C. R. 372. 

No one can deny that it is " the specific church " 
which is referred to in the foregoing paragraphs. And 
can any one tell exactly who these people are who " ljve 
according to the Word " ? If not, then how can this 
church be organized by man ? How can it exist in a 
visible form ? 

It is a great mistake, therefore, to suppose that the 
universal church differs in its nature or constitution 
from the specific church ; that one is invisible and the 
other visible; or that the former comprises only the 
good people throughout the world, while the latter com- 
prises more than the good people throughout Christen- 
dom — consists of a mixed multitude of good and evil. 
Yet this is one of the mistakes (and the parent of several 
others) into which Mr. Reed has fallen. For he says : 

" There is a Church Universal which comprises all 
the good spread over the whole earth, wherever they 
may be or whatever may be their religion. This church 
is invisible. It is known only by the life, and conse- 
quently only to the Lord, who alone seeth the heart. 
There is also a specific Church which consists of those 
who have the Word, and by whom it is read and the 
Lord is thereby known." — (pp. 28, 29.) 

It is plain from this that Mr. Reed's specific church 
is very different from Swedenborg's. Instead of being 
composed of those who have the Word and read it, as 
is the case with every-Protestant denomination in Chris- 
tendom, Swedenborg declares (contrary to Mr. Reed) 
that it consists only of those who learn truths from the 
Word and live according to them; and adds that "no 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 37 

others form any part of the church whatever." And 
since no man and no body of men can tell who they 
are that live, both internally and externally, according 
to the truths of the Word, therefore this church is, and 
must forever on earth remain, invisible. It differs from 
the universal church only in this, that it is more interior 
and vital, and more limited in extent, being confined to 
countries where the Word is. 

It follows, too, from what has been said and shown, 
that this church is not distinguished by its doctrinal 
teachings or professed beliefs ; for if it were, its limits 
could be easily defined, and this would give to it the 
character of visibility — the very thing which it does 
not possess. 

IS THE NEW CHURCH "KNOWN BY DOCTRINE"? 

I have shown that Mr. Eeed is clearly mistaken in 
regard to the nature or constitution of the specific 
Church. While he admits that the universal Church 
is invisible, " comprising all the good spread over the 
whole earth," he holds that the specific Church is a vis- 
ible body, " consisting of those who have the Word, 
and by whom it is read and the Lord is thereby 
known ; " composed, therefore, of a mixed multitude — 
some sheep and some goats. For Mr. Keed does not 
need to be told that not all who have the Word and 
read it, live according to its precepts, and are there- 
fore righteous. On the contrary some of them are the 
very wickedest people on earth. 

But Swedenborg tells us that it is not from " having 
the Word and doctrines thence derived, nor from the 
4 



38 THE NEW CHURCH. 

circumstance of the Lord being known and the sacra- 
ments administered there," that any individual or peo- 
ple is a church ; but that it is by " living according to 
the Word, or according to doctrine derived from it ; " 
and that they who fail to do this, or who do not live 
according to the truth they learn from the Word, are 
out of the Church and form no part of it. And this 
he says, too, when speaking of the specific Church — 
making the constitution of this similar to that of the 
Church universal. 

Continuing his remarks on the specific Church as he 
understands it, Mr. Reed says : 

" This Church is founded on doctrine, and is known 
by it. It is this Church which is understood when 
Swedenborg says, speaking of the establishment of the 
New Church : ' Where doctrine is not received the 
Church is not, for the Church is from doctrine.' " 

From which the reader is left to infer, that the New 
Church is a visible and clearly defined body of people, 
distinguished by its doctrinal beliefs, consisting exclu- 
sively of those who acknowledge Swedenborg's divine 
mission and accept the doctrines taught by him. An 
inference, moreover, fully justified by what we find in 
other parts of his pamphlet, as where he says, " that 
the New Church is to be established by the reception 
of its doctrines, which doctrines are signified by the 
* man-child/ " (p. 26.) We shall see what is meant by 
the " man-child " when I come to show what Sweden- 
borg means by "the doctrine of the New Church." 
We shall see that he means no such elaborate system 
of doctrines as Mr. Reed is thinking of, and which he 
holds to be the distinguishing sign of the New Jerusa- 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 39 

lem on earth — that which defines its limits and makes 
it visible. 

And right here I join issue with our Boston brother ; 
and in my support and justification, shall array against 
him the oft-repeated and explicit teachings of our 
heaven-illumined scribe. And so much depends upon 
the issue — so important is it, under every aspect of the 
case, that we know where and what the New Jerusalem 
really is — that I shall offer no apology for multiply- 
ing quotations having a direct bearing on the question 
before us. 

Is the Church in its specific sense (and this, now, is 
the New Church, since the former Christian Church 
came to its end more than a century ago) composed 
exclusively of those who intellectually receive and ac- 
knowledge its doctrines ? — for no one will presume to 
say who receive and acknowledge them interiorly, in 
heart and life. This, now, is the question ; and let the 
Lord's chosen and illumined servant settle it. 

".Where men know and think according to doctrine, 
there the Church may be ; but where men do [or live] 
according to doctrine, there only the church is. Hence 
the spiritual church, or what is the same, the man of 
the church, first becomes a church when he acts from 
charity, which is the very doctrine of faith." — A. C. 916. 

Swedenborg is here speaking of the specific Church ; 
for in the same number he says that many among the 
Gentiles, " in consequence of observing the misconduct 
of Christians, hold their doctrines in abhorrence ; " and 
that " many in the Christian world " who expect to be 
saved, and who, it is to be presumed, " have the Word 
and read it," and therefore belong to Mr. Reed's spe- 



40 THE NEW CHURCH. 

cific Church, " form to themselves a spurious conscience 
which allows them to live like devils, hating and perse- 
cuting their neighbor." But he declares that such per- 
sons form no part of the real Church, specific or uni- 
versal. He also assures us that " many who have been 
distinguished for their skill and knowledge in points of 
doctrine, are among the infernals ; but all who have 
lived a life of charity are in heaven." (A. C. 1515.) 
And hundreds of times does he declare that truth of 
doctrine, however pure or exalted, does not constitute 
the church, and is of no account whatever unless the 
life be formed according to it ; and that the church is 
predicated of the will and never of the intellect, and 
that the will is the man himself. Thus he says : 

" The good of truth, that is, truth in the will and in 
act, is what causes man to be a church. When truth 
is implanted in the will, then there is internal good and 
truth. When a man is in this good and truth, the king- 
dom of the Lord is in him ; consequently he is a church, 
and, together with those of like character, constitutes 
the church in general. . . . 

" Moreover, that man may be regenerated and become 
a church [showing that the church consists exclusively 
of regenerate or regenerating souls], he must be intro- 
duced by truth to good ; and when truth becomes truth 
in the will and act, he is then introduced. This truth 
is good, and is called the good of truth ; and it produces 
new truths continually, for then first it fructifies it- 
self. ... The will-principle is the inmost of man. So 
long, therefore, as good and truth are out of the w r ill 
and only in the understanding, they are out of the man." 
— A. C. 5826. 

" A man enters heaven and becomes a church when 
he is in good, because the Lord flows-in into good with 
man, and through this into its truth. The influx is into 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 41 

the internal man where his heaven is. . . . Therefore 
unless a man be in good his internal man is not opened, 
but remains shut, however he be in truths as to doc- 
trine. . . . The man throughout is such as he is in re- 
spect to good, and not such as he is in respect to truth 
without good." — A. C. 10,367. 

" Only to think and thence believe that charity saves, 
and not to will and act accordingly, is the same as to 
believe that faith alone saves. . . . Hence it is plain 
that, only to think good and not to will and do it, does 
not constitute good in any one. The case would be the 
same if a man knew essential truths and goods, and 
from thought alone made profession of them, if he did 
not give them life by willing and doing them." — Ap. 
Ex. 458. 

Then it is well known that men may have an intel- 
lectual appreciation of many interior truths. They 
may understand them, and think they believe them. 
Yet if they are not in the effort to conform their lives 
to them, they are not really in the belief of those truths. 
There may be an outward profession of belief, while at 
heart there is denial and rejection of them. 

" When they who are in evils of life make a lip-pro- 
fession of truths from the Word and from the doctrines 
of their church, they suppose that they are in the belief 
of those truths. It likewise appears to them as if they 
were ; but still they are not if the life be evil." — A. C. 
7577. See also n. 10,153, 2429 ; Ap. Ex. 730, 107. 

And on the other hand there are many who have 
been educated in false doctrines, and profess to believe 
them ; but being in the desire and effort to do the will 
of the Lord as they understand it, their errors of doc- 
trine do them but little harm. Internally they do not 
believe those errors. Their hearts are wedded to the 

4* 



4 



42 THE NEW CHURCH. 

truth. And when they read the Word they are en- 
lightened by the Lord, and have a perception of the 
truth beyond what is taught in the creed they have sub- 
scribed. Or if not this, their falsities arising from the 
mere appearances of truth in the letter of the Word, 
are accepted of the Lord for genuine truths ; and these 
people belong, therefore, to the Church in its specific 
sense. 

" They who are in the spiritual affection of truth, 
when they read the Word do not see it from the doc- 
trine of the church in which they are born ; but they 
see it as if they were separated from that doctrine, since 
they desire to be enlightened and to see truths inwardly 
in themselves and not from others. They who are in 
this state are enlightened by the Lord, and are enabled 
to form for themselves doctrine from the truths which 
they themselves see, which doctrine is also implanted 
in them and remains in their spirit forever.'' — (Ap. Ex. 
190.) 

" Moreover there are truths which are mere appear- 
ances of truth, such as those of the literal sense of the 
Word, which are also accepted by the Lord as genuine 
truths when there is in them the good of love to Him 
and of love toward the neighbor or charity. In the 
other life also the good which is inwardly concealed in 
them dissipates these appearances, and makes bare the 
spiritual or genuine truths."— (Ap. Ex. 625.) 

" The inquiry in the spiritual world is concerning the 
nature and quality of every one's life ; for it is known 
that such as his life is, such is his faith and such his 
doctrine ; for life forms its doctrine and faith for itself 
[the real belief of each one being always in agreement 
with his ruling love, and not always what he- professes]." 
(D. P. 101. See also A. C. 3451, 8311, 10,648, 10,153 ; 
Ap. Ex. 867, 233.) 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 43 

DOCTRINE NOT THE BOND OF UNION. 

But is it possible, I shall be asked, for those whose 
religious beliefs differ as widely as do the beliefs of the 
professed receivers of the New Church doctrines and 
those of other Christians, to work together harmoniously 
in the same religious organization? I might answer 
this question by asking a few more ; such, for example, 
as the following : If mere agreement in doctrinal beliefs 
is the strong bond of union and the sure guarantee of 
harmonious action, why is it that there is so great lack 
of harmony and union among believers of the New 
Church doctrines? Why is the confession so often 
made by some of the most intelligent and affectionate 
receivers, that they feel no drawing toward and no sym- 
pathy with what is called " the organized New Church " ? 
Why do so many of this class stand aloof from the 
organization, and seek association with and find sympa- 
thy, instruction and fellowship in, other communions? 
Why, especially, is the separation so wide and the alien- 
ation so great in many places among the believers of 
these doctrines, that they will not consent to meet 
together for worship beneath the same roof? — but form 
separate and feeble societies, and worship apart in the 
same community, when all together would not form 
one respectable society in point of numbers ? Witness, 
for example, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco 
at the present time ; and New York, Cincinnati, Balti- 
more and Washington in times gone by. Do not such 
facts prove that mere doctrinal beliefs are not the 
strong bond of union among men that Mr. Reed 
imagines ? Do they not furnish ample confirmation of 



44 THE NEW CHURCH. 

the truth of what Swedenborg says in the following pas- 
sage ? — 

" There are two things which unite the men of the 
church, viz., life and doctrine ; when life unites, doctrine 
does not separate them ; but if only doctrine unites 
them, as at this day is the case within the church, then 
they mutually separate, ... as is evident from this 
circumstance, that he who is of one doctrine condemns 
another person sometimes to hell. But if life unites, 
doctrine does not separate, as is evident from this : that 
he who is in the good of life does not condemn another 
whose opinion differs from his own, but leaves it to his 
faith and conscience, and extends this rule even to those 
who are out of the church." (A. C. 4468.) 

No : not doctrine, but life ; not faith, but charity ; 
not right thinking and believing, but right willing and 
doing — this is the strong bond of union among the 
angels in heaven and men upon earth. Where this bond 
exists, there you will find harmony and union among 
those of various doctrinal beliefs — a harmony and 
union all the more perfect, too, because of such variety. 
But where this bond is wanting, no agreement in beliefs, 
however perfect, will secure or permanently maintain 
union among men. 

" The church is the image of heaven ; for it is the 
Lord's kingdom on earth. Heaven is distinguished into 
many general societies, and into lesser societies subor- 
dinate thereto ; but still they are one by virtue of good, 
the truths of faith there being according to the good 
with which they are congruous, for these have respect 
to good and are from it. If heaven was distinguished 
according to the truths of faith, and not according to 
good, there would be no heaven, for there would be no 
unanimity, inasmuch as they would not have from the 
Lord one principle of life or one soul ; this is given only 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 45 

in good, that i*, in love to the Lord and the neighbor, 
for love unites all ; and when- the love of good and 
truth is in every individual, there is then a common 
principle which is from the Lord and is the Lord who 
unites all. The love of good and truth is what is called 
love toward the neighbor." — (A. Q 4837.) 

So potent is the influence of love. It melts and fuses 
together souls of diverse doctrinal beliefs, and out of 
variety produces unity and harmony. As Swedenborg 
again says — and substantially the same thing is re- 
peated hundreds of times in his works — : 

" Mutual love and charity are productive of unity or 
oneness even among varieties, uniting these into one. 
For let numbers be multiplied ever so many times, even 
to thousands and tens of thousands, if all are principled 
in charity or mutual love, they all have one end, viz., 
the common good, the kingdom of the Lord and the 
Lord himself. In this case the varieties in matters of 
doctrine and worship are like the varieties of the senses 
and viscera in man, which contribute to the perfection 
of the whole."— (A. C. 1285.) 

To cite another passage of equal pertinence out of 
the multitude that present themselves : — 

" Let this truth be received as a principle, that love 
to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor are the 
essentials on which hangs all the Law and concerning 
which all the Prophets speak, ... in this case' all 
heresies would vanish and be done away ; and out of 
many churches there would be formed one church, not- 
withstanding the difference among them in doctrinals 
and rituals. ... In this case, too, every one would say 
of another, in whatsoever doctrine or in whatsoever ex- 
ternal worship he was principled, This is my brother : 
I see that he worships the Lord and is a good man." 
(A. C. 2385. See also 3241, 3451, 4689, 1834, 6761.) 



46 THE NEW CHURCH, 



BELIEF NO SURE INDEX OF CHARACTER. 

We are further assured that doctrines alone do not 
distinguish churches in the sight of the Lord; and that 
the disposition among men to make them the ground 
of distinction and separation, evidences the lack of that 
great principle which binds in one the angelic heavens 
and the good people of varying creeds on earth ; and 
proves also the existence of that sectarian spirit which 
is known to be the universal accompaniment of one of 
the most mischievous of all dogmas — the dogma of 
faith alone. 

" The several churches [that is, visible organizations] 
in the Christian world are distinguished by their doc- 
trines ; and the members of these churches have there- 
fore taken the names of Roman Catholics, Lutherans, 
Calvinists, or the Reformed and Evangelical Protest- 
ants ; with many others. This distinction of names 
arises solely from doctrines, and would never have ex- 
isted if the members of the church had made love to 
the Lord and charity toward the neighbor the princi- 
pal point of faith. Doctrines would then have been 
only varieties of opinion concerning the mysteries of 
faith, which they who are true Christians would leave 
every one to receive according to his conscience ; while 
the language of their hearts would be, He is a true 
Christian who lives like a Christian, that is, as the 
Lord teaches. Thus one church would be formed out 
of all these diverse ones, and all disagreements arising 
from mere doctrines would vanish." — (A. C. 1799.) 

Yet in the face of all this, and a great deal more of 
similar purport that might be cited, we are told that 
the New Church signified by the New Jerusalem, is a 
visible institution! — that it "exists as an organized 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 47 

i 

body," distinguished preeminently by its doctrines ; and 
with its limits so clearly defined, that, when asked re- 
specting its whereabout, one can point to it without 
hesitation, and say, " Lo ! there." 

But I would not be understood as denying or ques- 
tioning the importance of organized effort in the dis- 
semination of the truths of the New Church. I concede 
the usefulness, propriety and need of organizations 
(large and small) for this especial purpose ; and would 
gladly see every obstacle to their harmony, unity and 
efficiency removed. Nor do I see any objection to 
the formation of a worshiping congregation, wherever 
there is a sufficient number of the believers of these 
truths within the neighborhood of each other to support 
public worship and instruction according to them. 
What I object to is, the thinking and speaking of these 
organizations in the aggregate as the New Jerusalem 
foretold in the Apocalypse — " the specific New Church " 
— "The Holy City" come down from heaven — "the 
Bride, the Lamb's wife." And I object to this because 
I know that such claim is unfounded ; and because I 
see that it carries with it by strict logical sequence 
other errors which are hurtful in various ways — not 
helps but hindrances to the growth of souls and the 
spread of precious truth. 

THE ONE ESSENTIAL DOCTRINE. 

Speaking of the specific Church, which Mr. Reed 
believes " to consist of those who have the Word, and 
by whom it is read, and the Lord is thereby known," 
he says : " This Church is founded on doctrine, and is 



48 THE NEW CHURCH. 

known by it." And he adds a quotation from Sweden- 
borg (without reference) in which it is said that " the 
Church exists from doctrine," and can have no exist- 
ence "where doctrine is not received/' I cheerfully 
accept this, but not in the sense in which Mr. Reed in- 
tends it to be understood. In what sense, then ? I shall 
be asked. Let Swedenborg answer. He shall say what 
the doctrine is whereon the specific Church is founded, 
and without which it could not exist. And we have 
his answer, too plain to be misunderstood, in the very 
number from which Mr. Reed has quoted less than two 
lines ivithout referring to number or volume. I will quote 
a dozen lines that the reader, seeing the connection, 
may see just what doctrine it is which Swedenborg de- 
clares to be essential to the very existence of the 
Church. 

" The New Church which is called the holy Jerusa- 
lem and is signified by the woman, cannot as yet be in- 
stituted except with a few, because the former Church 
is become a wilderness ; and the Church is called a wil- 
derness when there is no longer any good ; and where 
there is no good there are no truths ; and when the 
Church is of such a quality, then evils and falsities 
reign which hinder the reception of its doctrine, which 
is L^^"] the doctrine of love to the Lord and charity 
toward the neighbor, with the truths thereto belonging. 
And when doctrine is not received the Church is not, 
for the Church is from doctrine." — Ap. Ex. 730. 

There is no room for doubt as to what doctrine is 
here meant. It is the one great doctrine of the specific 
Church — the essential doctrine of the Sacred Scrip- 
ture — that which forms the sum and substance of all 
that the Law and the Prophets teach. For we are told 
further : 



MR. HEED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 49 

" The essential doctrine derived from the literal sense 
of the Word [and remember, all doctrine is to be drawn 
from this sense, and confirmed by it] is only one, viz. : 
the doctrine of charity and love — of charity toward 
our neighbor and of love to the Lord ; for this doctrine 
and a life according to it, is the whole Word, as the 
Lord teaches in Matthew xxii. 35-38." — (A. C. 3445.) 

Again : 

" The whole of the Sacred Scripture is nothing else 
but the doctrine of love or charity, which the Lord also 
teaches when He says : 

" * Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 
This is the first and great commandment. And the 
second is like unto it : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law 
and the Prophets.' Matt. xxii. 37-39. The Law and 
the Prophets are the Word in general and in particu- 
lar." — (N. J. D. n. 9.) 

Again : 

" The internal sense of the Word [which is its true 
meaning] is the very doctrine of love to the Lord and 
charitv toward the neighbor. This the Lord also 
teaches."— (A. C. 9409. See also n. 1285.) 

This, then, is the doctrine on which the specific Church 
is founded, and without which it would not be the 
Church. And this, too, is preeminently the doctrine of 
the New Church. It is what is signified by " the male- 
child " mentioned in the Apocalypse. And Mr. Reed's 
language can hardly fail to mislead his readers when 
he says " the doctrines [plural] of the New Church are 
signified by the man-child." Swedenborg says that this 
male-child " means the doctrine of the New Church." 
(A. E. 543.) And in the "Apocalypse Explained," 
5 D 



50 THE NEW CHURCH. 

where his explanation of the same text is more ex- 
tended, he says the male-child "means the doctrine of 
truth which is for the New Church called the New 
Jerusalem ; " and immediately adds : " Howbeit the 
genuine doctrine of the Church [meaning the New 
Church] is the doctrine of good, that is, the doctrine of 
life. And this is the doctrine of love to the Lord and 
of charity toward the neighbor. But still it is the Aqg- 
trine of truth, for doctrine teaches life, love and charity, 
and so far as it teaches these it is truth." — (Ap. Ex. 
724.) 

Here we have the doctrine of the New Church dis- 
tinctly stated, and by an authority which our Boston 
brother will hardly presume to question. This is the 
doctrine whereon this Church is "founded," and with- 
out which it could not exist — " the essential doctrine 
derived from the literal sense of the Word" — the doc- 
trine which comprehends " the whole of the Sacred 
Scripture ;" for it is the sum and substance of it all. 
And the same authority tells us what it is to love the 
Lord and the neighbor. 

" By loving the Lord is meant the performance of 
uses from Him as their source ; and by loving the neigh- 
bor is meant the doing of uses to him as the object of 
their direction." — (D. L. § xiii.) 

" He who believes that he loves the Lord, and does 
not live according to His precepts, is very much deceived ; 
for to live according to His precepts, is to love Him. 
Those precepts are the truths which are from the Lord 
and in which He is ; therefore, so far as they are loved, 
that is, so far as the life is formed according to them 
from love, so far the Lord is loved."— (A. C. 10,578.) 

" All the particulars of the doctrine of the New Jeru- 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 51 

salem relate to love to the Lord and love toward the 
neighbor. Love to the Lord consists in trusting in Him 
and doing His commandments ; and to do His command- 
ments constitutes love toward the neighbor, because this 
is to be useful to our neighbor." — (A. R. 903.) 

Now the question is : Are all the people in Christen- 
dom at the present day, who love the Lord and the 
neighbor after the ^manner here explained, to be found 
in our Swedenborgian or New Church organization? 
And no others, remember, are in the doctrine of the New 
Church, signified by " the male-child." Or are these 
people to be found exclusively in any religious body ? 
Will they ever be found in any single Christian denomi- 
nation ? Are there none in the various denominations 
of to-day besides our own, who trust in the Lord and 
do His commandments ? And is it quite certain — is 
it at all probable — that all within our own communion 
do this? Or will any one be so presumptuous as to 
undertake to tell us just who or where all these people 
are ? The answer to each of these questions is so 
obvious, that I will not insult the reader's understand- 
ing by harboring even a suspicion that he may not 
see it. 

What, then, becomes of the theory of the pamphlet 
under review, that the New Church is a defined and 
visible body, distinguished by its peculiar doctrinal be- 
liefs ? It certainly finds no adequate support from the 
teachings of Swedenborg. On the contrary, it is clearly 
opposed to these teachings. 



52 THE NEW CHURCH. 

THE SPECIFIC NEW CHURCH. 

I come now to speak more particularly of the New 
Church, which Mr. Reed tells us " is to be established 
by the reception of its doctrines, which doctrines are 
signified by the man-child." We have seen that the 
" male-child " signifies the one great and all embracing 
doctrine of the Sacred Scripture — l!he doctrine of love 
to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor. This is 
preeminently the doctrine of the New Church. And 
few, I presume, doubt that there are multitudes in the 
various Christian denominations to-day that never read 
a page of Swedenborg, who are in the reception and 
acknowledgment of this doctrine, and a life according 
to it ; — multitudes who " trust in the Lord " and " live 
according to his precepts " ; and this is to love Him 
and the neighbor. If so, then these multitudes are in 
the New Church both in respect to doctrine and life. 

"As the specific Christian Church," says Mr. Eeed, 
" consisted of those who acknowledged the Lord at His 
first coming, so the specific New Church must consist 
of those who acknowledge Him in His second." This 
is plausible. To some, no doubt, it will seem conclu- 
sive. But the sophistry will be apparent on a careful 
or even a slight examination. It is neatly wrapped up 
— so neatly as to be almost hidden from common ob- 
servation — in the little phrase, " the specific Christian 
Church." I submit that there is not and never was 
any such thing. " The specific Christian Church " 
would imply that there is or has been some other Chris- 
tian Church — whioh implication is wholly groundless. 
The Christian Church, or the Church where the Word 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 53 

is, is the specific Church. The only distinction between 
this church and the church universal is, that the former 
comprises all the regenerating men and women in Chris- 
tendom, who are in a higher or more interior degree of 
life than the good people of countries not in possession 
of the Word ; while the latter embraces all good people 
of w atever religion throughout the world. 

We are to bear in mind that the specific Church is 
the Church in Christendom. And this now is the New 
Church, for the first Christian Church ceased to exist 
more than a hundred years ago ; and there can never 
be but one Church on the earth at one and the same 
time. It follows, therefore, as a fair and necessary in- 
ference, that all which has been said and shown concern- 
ing the nature, constitution and whereabout of the spe- 
cific Church, is applicable to the specific New Church. 
But we are not left to mere inference. We have the 
positive and explicit teaching of Swedenborg, sustaining 
the conclusion that follows by logical sequence from 
what has already been said and shown ; — yes, and the 
teaching of the inspired Word also. 

See what is said of the New Jerusalem (by w T hich is 
signified the New Church) in the last two chapters of 
the Revelation. It is called " the Bride, the Lamb's 
wife." It is said to be of "pure gold, like unto clear 
glass." And who " enter in through the gates into the 
city " ? We have the answer : " they that do His com- 
mandments." And all the denizens thereof, we are as- 
sured, have the name of God and the Lamb " in their 
foreheads." From passages like these, as explained by 
God's chosen and illumined servant, we learn the char- 
acter of the New Church. We learn what class of 
5* 



54 THE NE W CH UR CH. 

people belong to it ; — not those alone who accept the 
doctrines taught by Swedenborg, but all who are in 
love to the Lord and the neighbor; for the doctrine 
which teaches this as the all-essential thing — is the 
doctrine of the New Church. And Mr. Reed himself 
will not insist that these people are all to be found in 
any one religious denomination, or that we may reason- 
ably expect they will ever be segregated, and exist to- 
gether as a visible body on earth. 

And in strict accord with the foregoing, we read that 
" there shall in no wise enter into it [the New Jerusa- 
lem] anything that defileth, or worketh abomination, 
or maketh a lie" ; that is, no wicked persons- — none 
who are in evils of life — will make any portion of this 
Church ; or as Swedenborg explains the text, " that 
no one will be received into the Lord's New Church, 
who adulterates the goods and alsifies the truths of the 
Word." 

Who, then, are admitted ? or who compose the New 
Jerusalem ? " They who are written in the Lamb's 
book of life " — these and no others ; for this, according 
to the same enlightened expositor, " signifies, that no 
others will be received into the New Church which is 
the New Jerusalem, but they who believe in the Lord 
and live according to his commandments in the Word." 
(A. R. 925.) And he immediately refers to a previous 
number wherein he explains the meaning of the phrase 
" written in the book of life," and says : " no others are 
found written in the book of life, than such as have 
lived according to the Lord's commandments in the 
Word, and have believed in the Lord ; this, therefore, 
is what is meant."— (A. R. 874 ; also n. 876.) 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 55 

This is plain enough. It shows us of whom the New 
Jerusalem is composed. And are these people all to be 
found in that visible body known as " the New Church," 
because so denominated? Are there none but Sweden- 
borgians who believe in the Lord and live according to 
his commandments in the Word ? The idea is prepos- 
terous. Nor is it less hurtful to those who cherish it, 
than it is preposterous to all thoughtful and observing 
minds. Nor may we reasonably expect that this class 
of people — all the righteous in Christian lands — will 
ever exist as a distinct organization known by its doc- 
trinal beliefs, or by any visible or intellectual sign. 

Therefore we say that the New Church (and we speak 
now of the specific and real New Church) is invisible ; 
and for this reason it can never be organized on earth. 
And the organization existing under this name, is only 
a sect — a mere fraction, and a very small fraction of 
the visible New Church. For are not all the churches 
of to-day being made new ? Have they not, since the 
time of the Last Judgment, been receiving an influx of 
new light and life and liberty from the Divine Hu- 
manity ? 

WHO ACKNOWLEDGE THE DIVINE HUMANITY. 

" The fundamental doctrine of the New Church/' says 
Mr. Reed, " is that of the Divine Humanity of the 
Lord. This doctrine can be rationally understood and 
received only by means of the spiritual sense of the 
Word. There is no denomination of the former Church 
by whom it is received and acknowledged." 

And the reader is left to infer that, inasmuch as 
nothing is said about the doctrine of the Divine Hu- 



56 THE NEW CHURCH. 

manity in any other theological writings than those of 
Swedenborg, therefore none but the receivers of his 
teachings can be supposed to acknowledge or receive 
this doctrine, or to know anything about it. Conse- 
quently none others can belong to the New Church. 

This again, though plausible, is fallacious — as we 
shall see presently. For it is not with the lips or the 
intellect merely that the doctrine of the Divine Hu- 
manity is truly acknowledged or received, any more 
than it is with the lips or the intellect that the Lord is 
truly worshiped. Men may understand the spiritual 
sense of the Scripture, and be in the intellectual recep- 
tion and lip-confession of this doctrine, yet not be in the 
real acknowledgment of the Divine Humanity ; while 
others who never heard of the doctrine, may in reality 
and at heart acknowledge it. There is reason to believe 
that multitudes in all the Christian denominations of 
to-day, think of and worship no other God than the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and are in the effort to obey his pre- 
cepts. Shall we say of all such (no one but the Lord 
knows who or where they are), that they " do not ac- 
knowledge the Divine in the Lord's Human," and there- 
fore " are not of the New Church " ? 

"The acknowledgment of God," says Swedenborg, 
" effects conjunction of Him with man and of man with 
Him/' But not the merely intellectual and verbal ac- 
knowledgment of Him, but the true Aear£-acknowledg- 
ment. For he proceeds, shortly after, to explain what 
he means by the acknowledgment of God, saying : 

"But none can in heart acknowledge God except 
those who have lived well. . . . This is because they 
alone love Him ; for they love the Divine things that 






ME. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 57 

are from Him, observing them in their conduct. The 
Divine things that are from God, are the precepts of 
his law : these are God, because He is his own proceed- 
ing Divine. And this [the keeping of these precepts] 
is to love God. Therefore the Lord says: 'He that 
hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that 
lovethme.' "— D. P. 326. 

And repeatedly does Swedenborg say the same thing 
in substance, when discoursing of the Divine Humanity 
and the true acknowledgment thereof by men. Thus 
he says : 

" They who are in the life of evil, cannot acknowledge 
the Lord [and it is of the Lord in his Divine Humanity 
that he is here discoursing], but form to themselves 
innumerable contradictions against Him, inasmuch as 
they are receptive of an influx of fantasies from hell ; 
whereas they who are in the life of good, acknowledge 
the Lord, inasmuch as they are under the influx of 
heaven, the principle whereof is love or charity." — A. 
C. 2354. 

We learn from this that all who are in the life of 
good do really — though they may not verbally or 
intellectually — acknowledge the Divine Humanity ; 
while such as are in the life of evil do not acknowledge 
it in reality, however they may do so with their lips. 

Again : " They who live the life of faith [as many do 
who profess faith alone], who, with bended knees and 
humble hearts, adore the Lord as God the Saviour [as 
thousands do in all the churches], thinking nothing at 
the time from doctrine about the distinction between the 
Divine and the Human nature, . . in respect to these 
the Lord's Divine Humanity is in their hearts" — A. C. 
4724. 

" They within the Church, who are principled in the 
good of charity, acknowledge the Lord's Divine Hu- 



58 THE NEW CHURCH. 

manity and Holy Proceeding [not necessarily with the 
understanding and lips] which is understood by the 
two angels ; but not so they who are not principled in 
the good of charity." — Ibid. 2326. 

" They who are in the life of evil are admitted no 
further than to the mere knowledge of good and of the 
Lord, but not to the very essential acknowledgment and 
belief thereof." — Ibid. 2357. 

" They among the Gentiles who do works of charity 
from the affection of good, and worship the Supreme 
Being from the affection of truth, are in the Lord's 
spiritual church ; and although they are ignorant of 
the Lord during their abode in the world, still they 
have in themselves the worship and tacit acknowledgment 
of Him when they are in good ; for in all good the Lord 
is present. Therefore these in another life also easily 
acknowledge Him [openly], more easily, indeed, than 
such Christians as are not so principled in good, and 
yet receive [with the intellect] the truth of faith respect- 
ing the Lord." — A. C. 3263. 

Swedenborg further tells us that there are some among 
the highest or celestial angels, " who, while they were 
men on earth, conceived an idea of the Lord's human 
principle as of that appertaining to another man." 
But they had been in the affection or love of good ; 
and " ideas inspired by the affection of good, are the 
ground of all conjunction in. another life." — Ibid. 2574. 

Thus we see that there may be, and no doubt there 
is with thousands, a real acknowledgment of the great 
central doctrine of the New Church, when there is no 
open or formal acknowledgment of it. But w T ho are in 
this real acknowledgment no one can know but the 
Lord alone. Therefore He only knows who are in and 
of the New Jerusalem. 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 59 

Take the following passage as still further confirma- 
tory of the view I am advocating. Swedenborg is speak- 
ing of the different aspects which the same truth pre- 
sents to men of the celestial and those of the spiritual 
Church. And he says : 

" They disagree about that most essential of all truths, 
viz., the Lord's Divinity, his Humanity and Holy Pro- 
ceeding. The celestial perceive that they are not three 
but one ; whereas the spiritual abide in the idea of three, 
yet are willing to believe they are one. Since, there- 
fore, there are disagreements about this most essential 
point of all, it may be seen that the varieties and differ- 
ences of doctrines are innumerable. . . . But notwith- 
standing these varieties and differences, still they to- 
gether form one Church when all acknowledge charity 
as the essential of the church, or, what is the same 
thing, when they have respect to life as the end of doc- 
trine; that is, when they inquire how a man of the 
Church lives, and not so much what are his opinions [or 
beliefs]; for to everyone in the other life the Lord 
assigns a lot according to the good of his life, and not 
according to the truth of doctrine separate from this 
good." — Ibid. 3241. 

We see from this that an intellectual disagreement in 
regard to this fundamental and " most essential point 
of all," need not and does not hinder those who disagree 
from being of one and the same Church; provided " they 
have respect to life as the end of doctrine." For* all 
who regard this as the end, are in the real and practical 
acknowledgment of charity as the essential thing, and 
are therefore in the one great and all-embracing doc- 
trine of the Word signified by the " male-child " ; and 
this is preeminently the doctrine of the New Church. 



60 



THE NEW CHURCH. 



VARIETY IN THE NEW CHURCH. 

I have already referred to the endless variety existing 
in the angelic heavens, and which Swedenborg tells us 
is necessary to their perfection. A similar variety is 
also necessary to the perfection of the Church, which is 
the Lord's heaven on earth. But the necessity of any 
such variety in the New Church, Mr. Reed seems not 
to recognize. Certainly his theory does not provide for 
it, nor indeed render it possible. Yet our great au- 
thority assures us that a similar variety belongs to this 
Church, and that it is indispensable to its completeness. 
Speaking of the seven churches in Asia, symbolized by 
the seven candlesticks which John beheld in vision, he 
says " they signify the New Church on earth, which is 
the New Jerusalem." And he adds : 

" The seven candlesticks do not mean seven churches, 
but the Church in the aggregate, which in itself is one, 
but various according to reception. These varieties 
may be compared to the various jewels in a king's 
crown ; also to the various members and organs in a 
perfect body, which nevertheless make one. The per- 
fection of every form consists in different things being 
suitably disposed in their order. Hence it is that the 
entire New Church as to its various particulars, is de- 
scribed in what follows by the seven churches." — A. R. 
66.. See also T. C. R. 763. 

And in these seven Asiatic churches, which signify 
the entire New Jerusalem in all its variety, we find, 
mingled with people in every form and degree of fal- 
sity and evil, some also in the various states of good 
and truth, from the highest in which are they who are 
" in truths grounded in good from the Lord," down to 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 61 

the lowest signified by the church in Laodicea, who be- 
lieve in salvation by faith alone. Yet the greater part 
of these professed solifidians, Swedenborg tells us, " do 
not know what faith alone is," but believe that it is " to 
think concerning God and salvation, and how they 
ought to live" And because they live in charity, they 
constitute a portion of the New Church. 

The same doctrine of endless variety in the New 
Church (coupled also with that of its invisibility) is dis- 
closed in Chapter VII. of the Revelation as explained 
by Swedenborg. This chapter treats of the sealing of 
the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, by which are 
meant " all of the New Christian Heaven and the New 
Church, who will be in truths of doctrine derived from 
the good of love through the Word from the Lord." 
(A. R. 348.) And at the conclusion of the sealing of 
each of these tribes, the seer adds : 

" After this I Beheld, and lo, a great multitude which 
no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and 
people and tongues, stood before the throne and before 
the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their 
hands." 

And Swedenborg says that this great multitude 

" Signifies all the rest who are not among the above 
recited [that is, not among the twelve tribes], and yet 
are in the Lord's New Heaven mid New Church, being 
those who compose the ultimate Heaven and the exter- 
nal Church, whose character no one knows but the Lord 
alone. They who are meant by the twelve tribes of 
Israel are such as constitute the Lord's internal church ; 
but they who are now mentioned are such as constitute 
the external church, and cohere as one with the above 
recited, as inferior things with superior, or as the body 
with the head."— A. R. 363. 
6 



62 THE NEW CHURCH. 

From this it appears that the largest portion of those 
who belong to the Lord's New Church, (for the external 
church comprises many more than the internal — see 
A. C. 6587) are not " in truths of doctrine," but consist 
of a class of persons who, according to Mr. Reed's the- 
ory, are quite outside of the New Church, and form no 
part of it whatever. And it is obvious enough that 
some of these persons must belong to the specific New 
Church, that is, to the portion of the New Church in 
Christendom, though they are not in the reception of 
the internal sense of the Word. For it is said that they 
" compose the external church " ; and we are told that 
" the men of the external church are they who have 
qualified their good by exterior truths such as those of 
the literal sense of the Word." (A. C. 7840.) And it 
is expressly declared that " no one but the Lord alone 
knows the character of these people," or can tell who 
or where they are — proving conclusively that this 
Church is invisible. 



TO WHOM IS THE LORD REVEALED? 

Then no one, I presume — not even Mr. Reed — will 
maintain that a person may belong to the New Church 
who does not receive the Lord internally. And who 
receive Him thus ? To whom alone does He come in 
the manner promised where his second advent is fore- 
told — " with power and great glory " ? To those who 
receive (intellectually) the doctrines of the New Church 
as revealed through Swedenborg ? By no means ; but 
only to those who live the truth they acknowledge, and 
thus unite that truth with the good of love which is the 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 63 

very substance and life of the Lord, in their own souls. 
This is distinctly taught by Swedenborg. Thus in the 
chapter in which he treats of the Lord's second coming, 
and the purpose thereof, he says : 

" The Lord's presence is perpetual with every man, 
both the wicked and the good ; for without his presence 
no man lives. But his coming takes jDlace only with 
those who receive Him, who are such as believe in Him 
and do his commandments. The Lord's perpetual pres- 
ence causes man to become rational, and renders him 
able to become spiritual. This is effected by the light 
which proceeds from Him as a Sun in the spiritual 
world, and which man receives in his understanding. 
That light is truth, through which man possesses ration- 
ality. But the Lord's coming takes place with him 
who unites heat to that light, that is, love to truth ; for 
the heat proceeding from that same Sun is love to God 
and love toward the neighbor. The mere presence of 
the Lord and the consequent enlightenment of the un- 
derstanding, may be compared to the presence of solar 
light in the world ; unless this light is united with heat, 
all things on earth are made desolate. But the Lord's 
coming may be compared to the advent of heat which 
takes place in spring ; because the heat then unites with 
light, the earth is softened, seeds sprout and bring forth 
fruit. Such is the parallelism between the spiritual sur- 
roundings of man's spirit and the natural surroundings 
of his body. 

" It is the same with the man of the church in the 
composite form as it is with the individual man. Man 
in the composite form is the church existent among 
many, while the individual man is the church existent 
in each one of those many." — T. C. E. 774, '5. 

To no soul, therefore, does the Lord really reveal 
Himself in his second advent, any farther than that soul 
shuns evils as sins, and thereby freely receives the good 



64 THE NEW CHURCH. 

of His unselfish love. He is present, indeed, with others 
— even with the wicked ; present in the truths they un- 
derstand and believe — comparatively as the sun is 
present in the clear cold light of winter. But He is 
not in them nor they in Him. The quickening warmth 
of his love is absent, and therefore they can bear no 
fruit. And to all such the gates of the New Jerusalem 
are forever shut. 

INCREASE OF THE NEW CHURCH. 

Mr. Keed quotes from the Apocalypse Explained the 
three reasons assigned by Swedenborg, " why the New 
Church, called the New Jerusalem, is first to commence 
with a few, afterward with greater numbers," etc. : 

"The first is, that its doctrine, which is [Ji^*] the 
doctrine of love to the Lord and charity toward the 
neighbor ["H^S], cannot be acknowledged and thence 
received except by those who are interiorly affected with 
truths." Another reason is, " that the doctrine of this 
Church cannot be acknowledged, and therefore cannot 
be received, by those who have confirmed themselves 
in faith alone, both in doctrine and in life. Confirma- 
tion in doctrine only, does not hinder reception ; but if 
it be at the same time in life, it does hinder, for such 
persons do not know what love to the Lord nor what 
neighborly love or charity is, neither do they desire to 
know." And the third reason is, " that the New 
Church on earth increases according to its increase in 
the world of spirits " ; and no others in that world could 
"receive the doctrine [just mentioned] but those who 
were in the spiritual affection of truth." And he adds : 
"the number of these in the spiritual world now in- 
creases daily ; wherefore, according to their increase, the 
Church which is called the New Jerusalem increases on 
earth." — Ap. Ex. 732. 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 65 

It is not a little surprising that Mr. Reed, after 
quoting this passage from the Apocalypse Explained, 
should say : "It is clearly implied here, as it is abun- 
dantly elsewhere, that the New Church is to be established 
by the reception of its doctrines." I submit that, in the 
sense in which our Boston brother uses this term, doc- 
trines, there is here no such implication as he alleges. 
So far from it, there is not a syllable in the whole para- 
graph about doctrines — only about the one great 
comprehensive New Church doctrine, that "of love to 
the Lord and charity toward the neighbor." And if 
there are at the present time, in all Christendom, none 
but Swedenborgians who receive this doctrine, then Mr. 
Reed is right in believing that no others belong to, or 
constitute any part of, the specific New Church ; other- 
wise not. 

It is worthy of remark, also, that this paragraph 
(Ap. Ex. 732) was written within four or five years after 
the Last Judgment, when there was not, probably, 
(besides Swedenborg himself) a single receiver of the 
doctrines of the New Church (according to Mr. Reed's 
view of what entitles one to be so regarded) in all the 
world ; and therefore not another member of this Church 
anywhere on earth. Yet the seer speaks of the num- 
ber of those who were able to accept its one great doc- 
trine, and thereby establish their title to membership 
in this Church, as " increasing daily " on earth and in 
the spiritual world at the time he was writing. Yet 
there was no multiplication of professed receivers — no 
enlargement of a visible body — no increase in the num- 
ber of those who openly avowed their reception of the 
doctrines of the New Church as commonly understood. 
6* E 



66 THE NE W CHURCH. 

If, then, the New Church, within four or five years 
after the Last Judgment, was increasing daily on earth, 
"according to its increase in the world of spirits," when 
there were no acknowledged receivers of its doctrines 
anywhere in the world, and of course no organization 
of such persons, we are forced to the conclusion that 
this Church is not a visible body distinguished by its 
doctrinal beliefs. 

" Those who are permitted to enter in through the 
gates into the city," says Mr. Reed, " pass into the 
spiritual sense, which is enclosed and protected by the 
literal as by a wall." But how is such permission 
obtained ? Not by the profession or possession of any 
peculiar doctrinal views ; not by any abundance of in- 
tellectual treasures ; not by the verbal or rational ac- 
knowledgment of the internal sense of the Word, the 
Divine Humanity, or any doctrines whatsoever. No : 
" Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they 
may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in 
through the gates into the city." 

ARE ALL BUT SWEDENBORGIANS WITHOUT THE 

GATES? 

And who are they outside the walls ? Not necessarily 
those who are unacquainted with the New Church doc- 
trines ; nor those who are ignorant of" correspondences," 
or of the spiritual sense of the Word. " ' For without 
are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murder- 
ers and idolaters,' &c, signifies," says Swedenborg, 
" that no one will be received into the New Jerusalem, 
who makes no account of the commandments of the 
decalogue, and does not shun any evils therein as sins, 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 67 

and therefore lives in them " — proving again that not 
right thinking or believing, but righteous doing — the 
keeping of the divine precepts — is what gives admission 
into the New Jerusalem ; and that no one lacking this, 
can enter into the city, whatever doctrines he 'may be- 
lieve, or however great his delight in them, or however 
ardent his zeal in promulgating them. 

And does any one believe that all the vast multitude 
of people in Christian lands to-day (except Swedenbor- 
gians) are of that class said to be " without " ? Does 
our Boston brother himself believe this? Are there 
none among them who " have respect to the command- 
ments of the decalogue/' or who " shun as sins the evils 
therein enumerated " ? If there be, they certainly 
belong to the Lord's Church, yes and to his New Church, 
for there is now no other. The specific Church, or the 
Church in Christendom to-day, is the New Church. 
But there are, among those composing this Church, 
countless degrees of enlightenment and endless diversity 
of state. And this very diversity, we should remember, 
is one of the distinguishing characteristics of this Church. 
" I have heard," says Swedenborg, " that churches which 
are in different states of good and truth, provided their 
goods relate to love to the Lord and their truths to 
faith in Him, are like so many gems in a king's crown." 
(T. C. R. 763.) And speaking of the varieties in the 
New Church, which he says contribute to its perfection, 
and which were typified by " the seven golden candle- 
sticks," he adds : " These varieties may be compared to 
the various jewels in a king's crown ; also to the various 
members and organs in a perfect body, which neverthe- 
less make one." — (A. R. 66.) 



68 



THE NEW CHURCH. 



FOR WHAT WERE THE WINGS GIVEN t 



" The two wings of a great eagle," says Mr. Keed, 
" were not given to the woman to enable her to w T alk on 
the earth, but to rise above the clouds of the letter into 
the clear light of heaven." Was this the purpose for 
which the wings were given to the woman ? Was it not 
rather " that she might fly into the wilderness, into her 
place, where she is nourished for a time and times and 
half a time from the face of the serpent " ? — a very 
different purpose, we see, from what our Boston brother 
imagines. And turning to Swedenborg's exposition of 
this text and the context, we find in it abundant sup- 
port of just that theory of the New Church advocated 
in these pages, which is very different from the theory 
of Mr. Keed and his school. Instead of the wings 
being given to the woman to enable her " to rise above 
the clouds of the letter," and fly out of the wilderness, 
we learn that it was the purpose of Divine Providence 
that she should remain in the wilderness, " where she 
hath a place prepared of God," until she should reach 
a state of maturity ; for there, better than elsewhere, 
could she be protected, fed and nourished by the ever- 
watchful, loving and bountiful One who careth for and 
feedeth His own flock like a shepherd. 

" That the woman got the wings of a great eagle," 
says Swedenborg, " and flew to her own place, means 
that the Church called the New Jerusalem is to tarry 
among those who are in the doctrine of faith separate 
from charity, while it is growing to its fullness [or ma- 
turity]." That is, the humble followers of the Lord 
whose minds are illumined by the new truths from out 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 69 

the new angelic heavens, are to remain mixed up (so 
far as relates to outward church organization) with 
those who are in falsities and evils. For " in that 
Church [the wilderness, where the New Church was to 
tarry] there are dragons who separate faith from good 
works, not only in doctrine but also in life. " But they 
are not all of this character. Some of them, though 
professing faith alone, nevertheless live righteously. 
As Swedenborg says : 

" There are others in the same Church [the wilder- 
ness] who live the life of faith, which is charity ; these 
are not dragons, although among them ; for they think 
it is agreeable to doctrine that faith produces the fruits 
which are good works, and that the faith which justifies 
and saves, is to believe those things which are in the 
Word and do them. But the dragons are of an entirely 
different way of thinking." — Ap. Ex. 764. 

Then note the revealed purpose of Providence (sym- 
bolically expressed) in having the woman take refuge 
in the wilderness, " where she hath a place prepared of 
God." It is, that she may there be more effectually 
strengthened, fed, nourished and increased — and thus 
be " helped " as she could not if she should flee out of 
the wilderness, and seek to find for herself a better 
place than that providentially prepared for her. For 
her growth and " help " are from those in the wilder- 
ness where she is to remain during the period of her 
immaturity, "who are not dragons, although among 
them." 

Speaking of the earth which " helped the woman," 
Swedenborg says : " by the earth here is meant the earth 
of the wilderness, into which the woman fled, and where 
she had a place prepared of God." And the symbolic 



70 THE NEW CHURCH. 

language expressive of the Divine intent, "that she 
might be nourished for a time and times and half a 
time, from the face of the serpent," is explained by him 
in this wise : 

" That hereby is signified, until the church grows and 
comes to its fullness, appears from the signification of 
being nourished as denoting to be sustained and in the 
meantime to grow ; and from the signification of a 
time and times and half a time, as denoting the state 
of increase of the church, even to its fullness." — Ap. 
Ex. 761. 

Now, bearing in mind that the specific New Church 
is not a visible body (a proposition which, I think, has 
been clearly demonstrated), it is plain that its growth 
is not to be measured like the growth of a sect, that is, 
by the multiplication of believers who can be seen and 
counted. If it were a visible body, counting would be 
the true way of measuring its increase. But whatever 
view is taken as to the whereabout or visibility of this 
Church, no one, I presume — not even Mr. Reed him- 
self — will contend that it has already reached its ma- 
turity, or " come to its fullness." 

Nor will it be maintained that the organization which 
has assumed the name of the New Church — composed 
largely as it is, of those who have gone out from the 
" place prepared of God " — is in a very healthy, har- 
monious or thriving condition. And may not the ex- 
planation of its known and conceded want of vigor, 
harmony, vitality and thrift, be found in the fact that 
the receivers of its doctrines have gone forth out of the 
wilderness, and sought to make for themselves a better 
place than that " prepared of God," instead of remain- 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 71 

ing in it as Providence designed they should, and exer- 
cising a child-like trust that He who careth for the fowls 
of the air will surely not forget to nourish and protect 
his children in the place prepared for them by Himself? 
May not their course — so plainly contrary to the inti- 
mations of prophecy and the teachings of our illumined 
scribe — have been prompted by self-regard and self- 
derived intelligence more than by the wisdom that 
cometh from Above ? And may they not, through this 
mistake and others connected with and consequent on 
this, have interrupted the free flow of the heavenly cur- 
rents into their souls, and so have deprived themselves 
of the " help " which the earth of the wilderness would 
have rendered had they remained there? — yes, and of 
the blessed privilege and larger opportunity they might 
otherwise have enjoyed of imparting new light and life 
to others ? 

These questions, I submit, are of serious moment, and 
deserve the careful consideration of Mr. Reed, and all 
that school of thinkers and writers to which he belongs. 

CONCLUSION. 

To conclude : — I have pointed out some of the mis- 
takes and fallacies of Mr. Reed's pamphlet, prominent 
among which is the idea that the New Jerusalem is a 
visible body composed exclusively of those who ac- 
knowledge the claims and accept the teachings of 
Emanuel Swedenborg. And I have endeavored to 
show : — 

1st. That Swedenborg uses the term Church in two, 
and only two, senses : (1) as denoting the aggregate of 



72 THE NEW CHURCH. 

religious organizations among those who have the 
Word, and thereby a knowledge of the Lord, without 
regard to character ; and (2) as denoting only the good 
people in Christian countries, whose internal and real 
character is known to the Lord alone. In one sense, 
therefore, he means by it the visible and nominal church ; 
in the other, which is the sense in which he most fre- 
quently uses the term, he means the invisible and real 
church. 

2d. That there is a specific church and a universal 
church, the former being relatively less numerous 
though more interior and more enlightened, but essen- 
tially the same as the latter in its nature and constitu- 
tion ; the one consisting of all in Christian lands who 
are in a state of love to the Lord and charity toward 
the neighbor; and the other composed of the good 
throughout the whole world, but whose character is 
known only to the Lord. 

3d. That, at the time of the Last Judgment and in 
consequence of that event, men on earth began to have 
new thoughts, new feelings, new perceptions, new views 
of spiritual truth and religious life, new inspirations of 
civil and religious liberty ; and that this new influx of 
light and life into the minds and hearts of all who are 
willing to receive them, — pointing to and hastening 
the fulfillment of the divine prediction, " Behold, I make 
all things new " — is what Swedenborg referred to when 
he spoke (L. J. 73.) of " the Church hereafter/' mean- 
ing the New Church, which was to remain " similar in 
the outward form " to what the Christian church had 
been, but to be " inwardly dissimilar." 

4th. That the New Church is the only church now on 



ME. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 73 

earth, since there cannot exist more than one church at 
any given time. And that this New Church, in its gen- 
uine and specific sense, is not a new ecclesiasticism — 
not a new visible organization distinguished by its pe- 
culiar doctrinal beliefs, but is composed of all the good 
people who profess the Christian religion — all who 
really love the Lord and the neighbor. And since these 
can be known and .distinguished only by Him who 
alone sees the internals of men, therefore the New 
Church in its specific sense, is invisible, and can never 
exist on earth in a distinct and organized form. 

5th. That it is, therefore, a grave mistake, and one 
which must inevitably lead to other mistakes and pro- 
duce much mischief, for any organized body to assume 
to be the specific New Church simply on the ground of 
its accepting the new doctrines revealed through Swe- 
denborg ; for this Church is not one to be known or 
distinguished by its doctrinal beliefs. Yet it is proper 
and useful for those who accept these doctrines, to join 
together in an organized effort for their dissemination 
by any and all lawful methods. But any attempt to 
distinguish the Lord's church or people by the doctrines 
they profess, or any thought of building up a visible 
New Jerusalem here on earth simply by organizing a 
new religious body of those who receive its doctrines, is 
an attempt to separate the wheat from the tares before 
the time of harvest ; or an attempt of the woman to 
seek for herself an abode elsewhere than in the wil- 
derness — "the place prepared of God," where she 
could be protected and " helped " and " nourished for a 
time and times and half a time from the face of the 
serpent." And any such attempt, because contrary to 
7 



74 THE NEW CHURCH. 

divine order and the purpose of Divine Providence, 
must needs interrupt to some extent the free influx of 
the celestial currents, and thus hinder or hurt the 
growth of the Church. 

If I have succeeded in demonstrating these points, it 
will readily be seen that the demonstration suggests to 
the readers and receivers of the heavenly doctrines quite 
a different aim from that cherished by Mr. Reed and 
his school, and quite a different course of action from 
that which has hitherto been pursued. Our aim should 
be, not to rear between ourselves and other Christians 
the highest possible wall of separation ; not to have new 
ordinances, a new priesthood, a new ritual, and conse- 
quently a new church-establishment — thus placing our- 
selves in a false if not offensive attitude, and exciting 
enmity and intensifying prejudice by assuming to be 
the Lord's true church on earth to the exclusion of all 
others ; not to disturb or weaken other religious organ- 
izations by advocating the immediate withdrawal there- 
from of all who read and accept the teachings of Swe- 
den borg. This aim, while altogether consistent with 
Mr. Reed's idea that the New Jerusalem is a visible 
body consisting exclusively of those who accept its doc- 
trines, is wholly incompatible with the view advocated 
in these pages and abundantly confirmed by the teach- 
ings of Swedenborg. And this false assumption on our 
part, has been and is still one of the chief hindrances 
to the spread of the new theology. 

If the view I have presented be the true one, our aim 
should be to win for the heavenly doctrines the favor- 
able regard of all who are in states to receive them ; to 
overcome as far as possible the prejudice naturally felt 



MR. REED'S VIEW OF IT EXAMINED. 75 

toward new truths, and remove out of the way all ob- 
stacles to their reception ; to encourage the freest and 
widest circulation of our writings among all classes of 
Christians, by the assurance (strengthened by our prac- 
tice) that we do not aim to disturb or rend asunder ex- 
isting organizations, but to open to them new and wider 
avenues of spiritual instruction — to impart unto them 
new light, liberty and love, and so to bless them with 
increased toleration, unity and strength, and a greater 
fullness of the Divine Master's spirit. 

Let this be our great and constant aim — the widest 
and speediest dissemination of the new theology and 
philosophy among our fellow-men — and the formation 
of clubs, societies and associations for that purpose, com- 
posed of all who are willing to aid in this benevolent 
and ennobling work, would follow as a matter of course. 
But none of those pitiful and disturbing ecclesiastical 
questions whose agitation has hitherto exerted a baleful 
and withering influence, could then arise. The wisest, 
best and most economical methods of disseminating the 
new truths, would be the only questions to be debated. 
Groups of delighted readers and affectionate receivers 
of these truths — little bands of free and earnest minds 
and of strong and loving hearts — would spring up in 
every city, town and neighborhood ; and the best men 
and women would be gradually drawn within the circle 
of their influence. And the blessed work of propagan- 
dise would go on all the more surely and rapidly be- 
cause of the fraternal relations which the receivers study 
to maintain and cultivate with the members of the 
several churches to which they may respectively belong. 
Persons whose antagonism would be aroused, and whose 



76 THE NEW CHURCH. 

prejudices would be intensified by the old sectarian 
methods and sect-building spirit, would be softened and 
won by this unwonted exhibition of genuine catholicity. 
Strong men whose souls have been blessed by the new 
truths, and who would gladly aid in their dissemination, 
would not be sickened and disgusted by petty ecclesi- 
astical squabbles, but would have their love quickened 
and their zeal increased by this manifestation of the 
broadening, elevating, sweetening influence of the new 
doctrines on those who receive them. The existing 
prejudice against these doctrines would speedily give 
way, and their enlarging and ennobling effect on the 
character of receivers would soon force conviction on 
the minds of multitudes that they must indeed be the 
very doctrines of heaven. 

These are some of the beneficent results sure to follow 
the general acceptance by the students of Swedenborg 
of that theory of the New Church herein set forth, 
and so abundantly sustained by the authorities cited. 
There are others equally beneficent, but I need not 
refer to them now. It is enough to know that the 
theory, if true, will some day be universally accepted ; 
and then, and not before, will the good of this truth be 
seen and realized. 



II. 



MR. GILES 1 IDEA OF THE NEW CHUECH CARE- 
FULLY CONSIDERED. 

IN the June 17th (1874) issue of the " New Jerusa- 
lem Messenger " is a discourse by Kev. Chauncey 
Giles, entitled " The New Jerusalem, a New Church in 
outward form as well as in inward life." It is not our 
habit to criticise sermons. But there are reasons for 
believing that we shall be excused for departing from 
the usual custom in the present instance, as the one now 
before us is of the nature of an essay rather than of a 
sermon. The author does not attempt to confirm his 
postulates by quotations from the Word, or from the 
writings of Swedenborg ; thus virtually conceding that 
no support of his main position is to be drawn from 
these sources. "The reasons for it," he says, "must 
come from a different source ; they must be found in 
the nature of the truths themselves, in the laws of the 
divine order, in the necessities which grow out of their 
promulgation, and in the wants of those who accept 
them." 

As the subject which our brother has here discussed 
is one now before the New-Church public, it may be 
both interesting and profitable to examine briefly his 
positions and argument. And we will first meet Mr. 
Giles on his own ground, and draw our reasons from 
the very sources he has indicated, or consider the ques- 
tion from his own point of view. 

7* 77 



78 THE NEW CHURCH. 

And what is the question ? It is that respecting the 
nature and whereabout of the New Jerusalem, and the 
orderly way of building it. Upon this question there 
are, among the receivers of the heavenly doctrines, both 
in this country and in England, two distinct and clearly 
defined schools; one of them holding that the New 
Jerusalem is not, and never can be in this world, a dis- 
tinct and visibly organized body, like the various exist- 
ing sects in Christendom ; the other, believing with Mr. 
Giles that it is a visible body, or that " the New Church 
must become distinctly organized." Both schools ac- 
cept Swedenborg as a divinely commissioned teacher. 
Both believe in the New Jerusalem and its descent from 
God out of heaven. Both believe in it as " a new city, 
with new walls, new streets, new dwellings, new temples 
for worship, new laws and new methods." We do not 
know a single individual who believes it is to be " the 
old city, with the old walls, the old narrow and crooked 
streets, the old dark dwellings, the old temples," etc. 
Both agree that one hundred and nineteen years ago 
the Old City was standing, but in a state of hopeless 
decay, and that the New City had not then begun to be 
builded ; but that ever since, the New has been and still 
continues in process of erection. 

So far both schools agree. But as soon as they come 
to the questions, Where and what is the New Jerusa- 
lem, and how is it or how ought it to be builded, 
straightway they part company. 

BUILD TNG THE CITY ANEW. 

Bight here, then, seems to be the proper place to 
consider what is the orderly or normal method of re- 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 79 

placing an old city by a new one — we mean a natural or 
material city. If we can once be sure of this, we may see 
clearly, from the light of correspondence, how the New 
Church comes and ought to come to take the place of 
the Old. Remember that the new city is to be builded 
upon the same site as the old one ; for Christendom is 
where the New Church of which we are now speaking, 
is to be built up ; or Christendom and Heathendom to- 
gether, if we admit that the Old Church included both. 

As a primary requisite to the rearing of a new in the 
place of an old material city, one or more persons must 
be brought to see the dilapidated and forlorn condition 
of the old, and to feel some desire for, and have some 
conception of, the beauty and order and grandeur of the 
new. Thus the new city, or some faint image of it, must 
first descend into their minds — first dawn upon their 
imagination. 

And what next ? Do these few persons straightway 
withdraw from the old city, go quite outside its limits, 
and there lay out new streets and dig for new founda- 
tions, saying, Here we will build new walls, new streets, 
new buildings, new temples ? By no means — if they 
are sensible people. But they set about building the 
new city right within the limits of the old. They do 
not expect nor intend to do so great a work in a day 
or a year. They will be satisfied if they complete it in 
a hundred years. They talk about their plans, exhibit 
them on paper to their neighbors ; and after a while 
they succeed in interesting many others. At last their 
views begin to be appreciated, not fully but partially, 
and their influence begins to be felt throughout the city. 

Then the people go to work. They introduce a new 



80 THE NEW CHURCH. 

and more thorough system of drainage. They adopt a 
new and improved method of lighting and watering the 
city. They widen a street here, and straighten and 
beautify another there. They demolish a rickety old 
block in one quarter, and replace it by a substantial, 
elegant, airy and well-ventilated structure. They tear 
down old, dark, worm-eaten, bat-inhabited temples, and 
on the same sites rear others that vie with the temples 
in heaven. They build with better and more durable 
materials. They dig deeper, and lay more substantial 
and secure foundations to all their buildings. They 
plant trees and flowers in places that were most unin- 
viting before, and beautify and adorn the spots that 
were once unsightly. And as these improvements go 
on, the spirit of improvement spreads ; until at last it 
reaches and affects nearly all the citizens. Then the im- 
provements proceed with still greater rapidity, growing 
always better and better as they increase ; until finally 
a new city stands there in the place of the old one, its 
streets, dwellings, temples, halls, sewerage, waterworks, 
illuminating apparatus, every thing, in short, belonging 
to the city being made altogether new. 

1 We submit, that this is the normal and the only sen- 
sible and orderly way of building a new city on the site 
of an old one. And if so, and there be any truth in 
the doctrine of correspondence, we confess ourselves at 
a loss to see how that school of professed New-Church- 
men to which Mr. Giles belongs, can for a moment main- 
tain their present position. For nothing can be plainer 
than that the normal method of building a new material 
city on the spot where an old one stands, is in direct 
and violent conflict with the theory of that school in 



31 R. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 81 

regard to the New Jerusalem and the best way to build 
it up. Carry out the correspondence in all its details, 
and see if you can find in it any thing that harmonizes 
with this theory ; any thing, that is, which points to a 
sudden withdrawal from their old religious organiza- 
tions, and the formation of a new and separate one, by 
persons who become receivers of the heavenly doctrines ; 
— bearing in mind, too, what the theory involves, viz., 
the idea that the organizations from which they with- 
draw are, viewed in the aggregate, the old city, and that 
which they enter, the new one — " the holy city New 
Jerusalem." 

But apply the correspondence to the theory of the 
other school, and it harmonizes with and sustains it 
perfectly throughout. For a new natural city that rises 
to take the place of an old one, does not spring up out- 
side the limits of the old, built there by the hands of 
those who, having caught the spirit of improvement and 
imbibed some new municipal ideas, have suddenly taken 
themselves away from their neighbors, and gone outside 
to rear a city of their own. On the contrary, it springs 
up within the old which it finally supersedes or dis- 
places. The renovation is gradual and slow. The new 
comes as fast as, and just where, the old disappears. 
And must not the corresponding way be the true and 
orderly way in which the New Church is to be built up, 
or to come and take the place of the Old ? Not by the 
receivers of its doctrines seceding and forming a new 
and separate organization ; but by remaining there in 
the old, and doing all in their power to renovate it by 
imparting thereunto the light and life of the new ? If 

F 



82 THE NEW CHURCH. 

any thing is plainly taught by the doctrine of corre- 
spondence, it surely is this.. 

MR. GILES' ILLUSTRATIONS IN CONFLICT WITH HIS 

THEORY. 

And everywhere throughout the universe, " the laws 
of the divine order " to which Mr. Giles confidently ap- 
peals, are in palpable conflict with his theory on the 
question at issue ; while they are seen to be as obviously 
in harmony with the theory of the opposite school. 

In all orderly divine operations by which the new 
comes to take the place of the old, it comes not in 
organic separation from, but in organic union with, the 
old. And so coming, it is helped by the old, although 
this latter is displaced by its advent. Take, for example, 
the human body. This is being renewed continually. 
Fresh material is daily added to it, while the effete and 
worn-out substance is cast off or gives place to the new. 
So that, as science tells us, a man gets an entirely new 
body every seven years. But how is this new body 
built up ? Not, surely, in organic separation from the 
old, but in most intimate and vital union with it. Each 
fresh instalment which is added day by day, comes in 
to take the place of the old. The new substance does 
not withdraw from the old, and attempt to build up a 
new body outside or apart from it. But it works in 
fraternal union with it, not trying even to displace the 
old substance so long as this latter is capable of render- 
ing the least service. "And thus the new body is built 
up little by little, not apart from or outside of the old r 
but right within it. 

Now carry out the correspondence here, and see which 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 83 

of the two theories in regard to the orderly method of 
building up the New Church it favors. It certainly 
does not favor the theory which holds that " the New- 
Church must become distinctly organized/' must be 
built up as a distinct and visible body, apart from and 
outside of all other church organizations. It is in pal- 
pable conflict with such a theory. 

" New principles," says Mr. Giles, " must ultimate 
themselves in new forms. It is a law of the divine 
order, which, as far as we know, reigns in all the prov- 
inces and degrees of the creation. " True : but we 
cannot see that this furnishes any support whatever to 
his theory. For he is urging a new and distinct church- 
organization for the New Jerusalem. And this is what 
he means by the " new form " that these principles are 
to take on according to the universal law here refer- 
red to. 

But what is the fact ? Why, if we look at our New- 
Church societies, associations and convention, we shall 
see that all of them are but poor imitations of what we 
find in the other churches. We meet together in tem- 
ples very similar to theirs ; but usually inferior to them 
in neatness, comfort, beauty or attractive ess. We read 
the Word, kneel, pray, sing, and listen to sermons as 
the people do in other churches. And the chief differ- 
ence between these performances in our churches and 
others, which would strike an ordinary spectator, is the 
general inferiority of ours to theirs. Is there any such 
marked difference between the outward form of the 
present nominal New Church (viewed ecclesiastically) 
and the other churches, as might be expected, if here 
is where we are to look for the ultimation of the " new 



84 THE NEW CHURCH. 

principles"? Is not the new ecclesiastical form so like 
the old, that the keenest eye can scarcely discern any 
difference? And, save in the general substitution of 
the Lord's prayer for longer and more wordy ones, the 
difference is seldom an improvement on the old. 

We submit that " the new forms " in which the prin- 
ciples of this New Age might be expected to ultimate 
themselves — in which they are, indeed, ultima-ting 
themselves — are not ecclesiastical, as Mr. Giles and his 
school would have us believe. Swedenborg expressly 
declares that the church which would arise in conse- 
quence of the Last Judgment and the New Dispensa- 
tion, would not be a new ecclesiasticism, or essentially 
different in form from what it had been, or from what 
it was at the time he wrote. The church " will be sim- 
ilar," he says, " in the outward form, but dissimilar in 
the inward;" dissimilar, that is, in its ideas, thoughts 
and spirit. 

Obviously, then, we must look in a different direction 
for the " new forms " in which the new principles ought 
to ultimate themselves according to the unchangeable 
Jaw referred to. We must search for them in a broader 
field than an ecclesiastical organization. " The field is 
the world." And when Ave look at all the new sciences, 
inventions, arts and industries which have sprung into 
existence since the commencement of the New Dispen- 
sation ; at the new and multitudinous labor-saving ma- 
chines ; the new modes of travel and transportation ; the 
new methods of education and of diffusing knowledge ; 
the new ways of farming, manufacturing, mining and 
printing ; the new methods of building, lighting, warm- 
ing and ventilating our houses and temples ; the new 






MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 85 

and better way, in short, of doing every thing whereby 
the wants of the world are supplied, and its conveniences 
and comforts multiplied and increased ; when we look 
at all these new, useful and rapidly multiplying forms, 
we find in them some adequate expression of the new 
principles announced for the New Age. They are pre- 
cisely such fonns as we might expect the New Dispen- 
sation of love and good-will to men would ultimate 
itself in ; all of them beneficent ; all of them breathing 
good-will to men ; all of them contributing to the pro- 
gress, comfort and welfare of our race. 

By the side of these grand and beneficent forms — 
all of them the normal outbirths or embodiments, ac- 
cording to that unfailing law of correspondence, of the 
new principles revealed from heaven — how inadequate 
and utterly insignificant seems that new ecclesiastical 
form which some are working so hard to build up, and 
which so many are in the habit of thinking and speak- 
ing of as " the New Jerusalem in its ultimate form " ! 

" The discovery of a new scientific truth," says Mr. 
Giles, " leads to the formation of a new society for its 
cultivation and extension.' 5 Sometimes. But do the 
receivers of the " new scientific truth" withdraw at once 
from all connection with other scientific bodies to which 
they have hitherto belonged, and set up a new body of - 
their own ? — a body with such lofty claims, too, as 
might (possibly) befit a company of men who held a 
monopoly of all the scientific knowledge in the world, 
and could show a good title-deed to the same ? We 
Jiave never heard of the receivers of new scientific truth 
behaving so unwisely or presumptuously. 

No one objects to an organization for the more effec- 
8 



86 THE NEW CHURCH. 

tive propagation of any new idea. We know of none 
who think that we are " working contrary to the laws 
of the divine order, in forming societies and organizing 
associations for the dissemination of the new truths 
which constitute a new age in the spiritual progress of 
humanity. " On the contrary every one admits the 
propriety and expediency of this. But organizing so- 
cieties and associations for such a purpose, is a very dif- 
ferent thing from organizing the New Jerusalem, how- 
ever some may seek to confound the two. The theory 
which we oppose involves the idea that the aggregate 
of so-called New-Church societies is the veritable New 
Jerusalem on earth. Hence the new ordinations, the 
new priesthood, and the claim of new and more valid 
ordinances set up by the advocates of this theory. If 
societies or associations were formed merely " for the 
dissemination of the new truths," no one would question 
their legitimacy or expediency ; and members of all the 
sects and of no sect might consistently enough belong 
to them, just as they may belong to an ethnological or 
scientific association or a Shakespeare club. But in 
stating this only as the purpose of our existing New- 
Church organization, as if no other end were contem- 
plated and no claim set up beyond this, is to attempt 
to wink out of sight the main question at issue, and to 
conceal the most prominent and only objectionable fea- 
ture of the organization. 

" A new political idea/' says Mr. Giles, continuing 
his series of illustrations, "organizes a new form of 
government. Take the idea of republicanism for ex- 
ample. Its essential principle in relation to natural 
life is the same as that of the New Church in relation 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 87 

to spiritual life, rational freedom. . . . Could it ever 
have become this benign and gigantic power [that it is], 
if the idea had not been organized, and the problem 
worked out on a scale of sufficient national grandeur to 
attract the eyes of the world ? " 

This seems plausible ; to some, no doubt, it will seem 
conclusive. But when the illustration is closely scan- 
ned, it will be seen to conduct to a very different con- 
clusion from that to which it was intended to lead. To 
make the cases parallel and the subject clear, let us 
suppose that the theory of our government, including 
our federal constitution, had never been thought of 
prior to 1757 ; and that it then came as a new revela- 
tion from heaven to some illustrious American, and was 
carefully written out by him, and afterwards printed 
in a book. Suppose this book to have been circulated, 
and in the course of forty or fifty years to have con- 
vinced a thousand American citizens of the truth and 
value of republicanism as well as of its heavenly origin. 
Suppose a public meeting had then been called, and 
these thousand zealous republicans had met in general 
convention ; and after due deliberation, had passed reso- 
lutions like the following : 

"Resolved, 1st. That this book on republicanism is 
what it claims to be, a veritable revelation from God 
out of heaven. 

" Resolved, 2d. That, since the ideas contained in this 
book are from heaven and entirely true, therefore re- 
publicanism is the only proper form of government for 
this or any other country. 

" Resolved, 3d. That these ideas can be of no practical 
value, until they be ultimated, or until we proceed to 
form a government in accordance with this heaven-re- 
vealed theory. 



88 THE NEW CHURCH. 

" Resolved, 4th. That allegiance to the God of heaven 
and fidelity to our own convictions, require that we 
have nothing more to do with monarchical government ; 
that we withdraw from all connection with it, and pro- 
ceed at once to establish a republican form of govern- 
ment according to the revealed pattern." 

And suppose (the reigning monarch or the powers 
that be, allowing them to proceed without interference 
in ultimating their new governmental ideas) they go to 
work and establish their new government with all its 
complicated machinery, electing their president, govern- 
ors, legislators, judges and all other onicers. Remem- 
ber they embrace only a ten-thousandth part of the 
adult population of the country ; and these are scat- 
tered over a territory more than a thousand miles 
square. To every republican who has withdrawn from 
all connection with the old and still reigning govern- 
ment, and joined in the republic, there are 9999 who 
are yet uninstructed or unbelievers in the principles of 
republicanism. These, if prejudiced against or opposed 
to the new ideas before, would not be likely to have 
their prejudices much softened, still less removed, by 
the grave attempt of this pitiful minority to set up a 
rival government in their midst. The governmental 
onicers, considering how small. the number from among 
whom they are to be chosen, must be for the most part 
fourth, fifth or tenth rate men. The taxes, considering 
how few there are to pay them, must be excessively 
burdensome to these few. But the government once 
started, its wheels must be kept well oiled, else it will 
surely go to ruin ; and the needful oiling involves an 
enormous expense in proportion to the amount of work 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 89 

done ; for every government official must be paid, though 
the work given him to do may not be a fiftieth part of 
what he might do and would do had he a larger con- 
stituency. 

These suppositions not only make the cases parallel, 
but they show to what conclusion in regard to his theory, 
this illustration chosen by Mr. Giles, when carefully 
examined, inevitably leads. Would this attempt, per- 
fectly parallel to that which has been making for nearly 
a century past to establish the New Church in external 
or " ultimate form," be the best and surest way to prop- 
agate the new republican ideas? Would it be the 
wise, prudent, sensible or normal way? Would it be 
the way most likely to overcome the prejudice against 
republicanism, or to win the sympathy and support of 
the people for the new ideas ? On the contrary, would 
it not be the sure way of hindering the progress of these 
ideas, and of bringing them ultimately into general 
contempt? Ultimated in this way, or under the cir- 
cumstances supposed, w r ould not republicanism exhibit 
itself in such a weak, sickly and pitiful form, as to ex- 
cite the scorn and derision rather than the admiration 
and love of intelligent people? 

What, then, would be the most sensible and effective 
way of propagating the new political ideas revealed as 
above supposed ? The answer is plain. Let each re- 
ceiver of these ideas do what he can to interest and 
instruct others concerning them. Let him hold on to 
the old government, continue a living active part of it, 
acknowledging his obligations to it and scrupulously 
performing all his duties under it as a good citizen. 
But let him, on all proper occasions and in all proper 
8* 



90 THE NEW CHURCH. 

and lawful ways, explain and advocate the new ideas. 
Let him talk them and write them and preach them 
and print them. (I am presuming that he has perfect 
liberty to do this.) Let him encourage the formation 
of clubs or associations in various parts of the country, 
for their wider and speedier dissemination. And when, 
through these and other like sensible and efficient 
methods, a clear majority of the people shall have been 
rationally won over to the new political ideas, then, and 
not before, let them attempt to organize these ideas, or 
to establish a government in accordance with them. 
This is the course that the republicans in all European 
countries are pursuing to-day. And it is so obviously 
the wise and proper way, that no intelligent person 
thinks of calling it in question, or of advocating any 
essentially different course. 

We see, therefore, that this political illustration like 
the others chosen by Mr. Giles, when carefully exam- 
ined, instead of supporting his theory in regard to the 
establishment or organization of the New Church, 
clearly lends its whole force in support of the theory 
advocated by the other school. The church should be 
one as the state is one. And a change in the religious 
ideas of the one should be sought for and effected in 
substantially the same way as a change in the political 
ideas of the other ; not by secession or disintegration, 
but by each receiver of the new ideas courageously and 
manfully remaining in the religious association where 
Providence has cast his lot, and faithfully and patiently 
working there to help leaven the whole lump with the 
new and better faith. 



MB. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 91 

APPEALS TO THE SECTS IN JUSTIFICATION OF HIS 

VIEW. 

In further support of his theory and that of his 
school, "concerning the distinct organization of this 
New Church/' Mr. Giles refers to the various sects in 
Christendom, most of which have originated in and been 
organized upon some single idea which has hencefor- 
ward remained as the leading and distinguishing idea 
of that sect. But what excites our special wonder is, 
that he should allude to such schisms as if they were 
proper and right, in accordance with the laws of divine 
order, and to be upheld and justified under the new 
Christian covenant. For he says : 

" The multitude of churches and sects into which the 
Christian world is divided is the result of a law which 
is universal in its operation, and that is, that a new idea 
in doctrine or a new accession of spiritual life has given 
rise [and must always ?] to a new organization. The 
new doctrine has created a new body, to ultimate its 
idea and do its work. ... In all cases, the new organ- 
ization was a necessity. 

" Protestants have divided up into a great number of 
sects. A question about the form of baptism has given 
rise to one of the largest sects of the Protestant Church. 
Doubts about the common doctrine of the Trinity gave 
rise to Unitarianism ; and belief in the final salvation 
of all men, to the Universalists." 

Does Mr. Giles mean to teach that this is all proper 
and right ? — all in accordance with the will of heaven 
and the established laws of divine order ? This certainly 
seems to be his meaning. But has he fully considered 
to what this teaching legitimately leads? As we inter- 
pret his language, it is an open justification of the nar- 



92 THE NEW CHURCH. 

rowest sectarianism and of every sectarian movement. 
It is virtually saying that the division of the Christian 
church into innumerable sects is orderly and right, and 
a thing, therefore, to be sanctioned and defended by the 
best of Christians. 

And if it be right to form a new organization or start 
a new sect as often as " a new idea in doctrine " or a 
new modification of an old one takes possession of a few 
people's minds, then there ought to be not less, certainly, 
than a dozen different sects in the nominal New Church 
of to-day. Every New Church society in the land 
ought at once to divide into three or four — some of 
them into half a dozen. But we doubt if our brother 
would counsel any thing like this. 

Wherever the conviction has become deeply rooted 
that belief or faith is the all-essential thing in religion ; 
that a man's salvation depends largely if not entirely 
on his believing exactly right ; there, and there only, is 
the law that Mr. Giles refers to, universal in its opera- 
tion. Solifidians are ever inclined to group themselves 
according to their beliefs. And in this they are quite 
consistent, since, according to their view, faith and not 
charity is the centre of unity. And the reason why 
Protestant Christendom has split up into so many sects, 
is because the dogma of faith alone has been regarded 
by them as paramount to every other. Had love or 
charity, that which is revealed as the true centre of 
unity in the New Jerusalem as it is in the heaven of 
angels, been regarded as the primary thing in the 
church, would the various sects in Christendom ever 
have arisen ? If not, then these sects are to be regarded 
as the legitimate offspring of the dogma of salvation by 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 93 

faith alone ; and their example, therefore, should hardly 
be cited as good for those to follow to whom the falsity 
of this doctrine is clearly revealed. 

IN PALPABLE CONFLICT WITH SWEDENBORG. 

We have Swedenborg's explicit and repeated declara- 
tions in confirmation of what has just been said. Speak- 
ing of the various religious sects in Christendom, and 
their producing cause, he says : 

"The several churches in the Christian world are 
distinguished by their doctrines ; and the members of 
these churches have therefore taken the names of Roman 
Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, or the Reformed and 
Evangelical Protestants ; with many others. This dis- 
tinction of names arises solely from doctrines, and 
would never have existed if the members of the church 
had made love to the Lord and charity toward the 
neighbor the principal point of faith. Doctrines would 
then have been only varieties of opinion concerning 
the mysteries of faith, which true Christians would leave 
to every one to receive according to his conscience; 
while the language of their hearts would be, He is a 
true Christian who lives like a Christian, that is, as the 
Lord teaches. Then one church would be formed out 
of all these diverse ones ; and all disagreements arising 
from mere doctrines would vanish." — (A. C. 1799.) 

Again, referring to the state of the primitive church 
and the subsequent departure therefrom of the principle 
of charity, the same illumined writer says : 

"The members of the primitive Christian church 
lived together as brethren, and also called each other 
brethren, and mutually loved each other. But in pro- 
cess of time charity diminished, and at length vanished 
away. And as charity departed, evil succeeded, and 



94 THE NEW CHURCH. 

falsities also insinuated themselves with evils ; whence 
arose schisms and heresies. These would never have 
existed if charity had continued to live and rule. For 
then they would not have called schism by the name of 
schism, nor heresy by the name of heresy ; but they 
would have called them doctrines agreeable to each 
person's own opinion or way of thinking, which they 
would have left to every one's conscience, not judging 
or condemning any for their opinions, provided they did 
not deny fundamental principles, that is, the Lord, 
eternal life and the Word, and maintained nothing con- 
trary to divine order, that is, contrary to the command- 
ments of the decalogue." — (A. C. 1834. See also n. 
1844.) 

And a score of similar passages might be cited from 
the same enlightened author. They disclose the large 
and catholic spirit of the New Jerusalem. And they 
show us, too, that the innumerable sects into which 
Christendom has been broken, instead of being in ac- 
cordance with the great principle of love and the laws 
of divine order, have arisen from the loss or extinction 
of this principle, and the general acceptance of the 
dogma of faith alone. But for this, they would have 
remained united as a band of brothers, like the mem- 
bers of the primitive Christian church, every one being 
left free to think for himself, however differently he 
might think from his brethren. And we have been in 
the habit of supposing, indeed it is distinctly taught by 
Swedenborg, that a similar state of things would exist 
again under the New Jerusalem dispensation ; that is, 
unity of spirit along with considerable diversity of be- 
lief. But, according to Mr. Giles and his school, this 
is neither to be expected nor desired. 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 95 



IN CONFLICT WITH WELL KNOWN FACTS. 

" It is sometimes said," continues Mr. Giles, " that a 
New-Churchman can now remain in any of the sects of 
the Christian church without being disturbed. It is 
doubtless true that he may be tolerated, if he keeps 
still, or expresses his views in such a covert way that 
he is not understood. But let him declare his senti- 
ments freely, and he will awake an opposition which 
will silence him or drive him away." 

We marvel at this assertion, in view of facts so well 
and widely known. Why, there are hundreds of Prot- 
estant ministers in this country and in England, who 
are to-day not only interested readers of Swedenborg, 
but are openly proclaiming all the most essential doc- 
trines taught by him. Some of them do not hesitate to 
mention the name of the great Swede, to quote him in 
their sermons, and commend his works as among the 
best religious writings extant. And they are not 
" silenced " nor " driven away " — far from it. The late 
Rev. E. H. Sears, for example, did this for twenty years 
or more. And he gave to the public, meanwhile, four 
of the most luminous, interesting and valuable religious 
works ever published in America, in each of which he 
made favorable mention of Swedenborg. And not only 
so, but we find in these works all the essential doctrines 
of the New Church concerning the Lord, the Word, 
regeneration and the life after death — most of them, 
too, presented with a fullness and beauty and force un- 
equalled by any other writer. And so far were his 
people or denomination from attempting " to silence 
him or drive him away " for this, probably no minister 
in the Unitarian denomination at the time of his de- 



96 THE NEW CHURCH. 

cease, was more highly esteemed or universally beloved 
than he. ^ 

A still more striking case in point, and in contradic- 
tion of Mr. Giles's assertion as well as of his whole 
theory on the question at issue, is that of Rev. John 
Clowes. For more than fifty years after he became a 
full and acknowledged receiver of the doctrines of the 
New Church, Mr. Clowes remained Rector of St. John's 
church in Manchester, preaching thes'e doctrines, mean- 
while, openly and earnestly to his people, translating 
into English the works of Sweclenborg, printing and 
circulating sermons and pamphlets elucidating the new 
truths, and urging them upon the attention of all candid 
and inquiring minds. And although (as might have 
been expected) this course awakened opposition from 
some of his ministerial brethren, they did not succeed 
in " silencing " him or in " driving him away." So far 
from it, he was permitted to continue in this course till 
the close of his natural life ; and died at an advanced 
age, honored and beloved by his own people and com- 
munion as few ministers ever were either before or since 
his time. 

Take another still more recent case, that of Rev. H. 
B. Browning, Rector of St. George with St. Paul, Stam- 
ford, England. Every student of Swedenborg who has 
read Mr. Browning's little work, " Words in Season -" 
knows that all the essential and distinctive doctrines of 
the New Church are therein set forth with great clear- 
ness ; and all the more effectively, doubtless, for his not 
mentioning the name of Swedenborg. And although 
the author is well known in England as a full receiver 
of the doctrines of the New Church, we have never 



MB. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 97 

heard of any attempt being made " to silence him or 
drive him away." 

And we could cite many other similar cases and kin- 
dred facts, all of them in direct conflict with Mr. Giles's 
assertion, and equally in conflict with his theory. Yet 
these facts .are seen to be in admirable harmony with 
the theory of the other school of New Churchmen re- 
ferred to. They disclose the true, orderly and provi- 
dential method of extending or building up the New 
Jerusalem. They show us that this method is as far 
superior to any thing of our own contriving, as the di- 
vine method of watering our fields and gardens is supe- 
rior to that by the tin sprinkler and human hand; or 
as that of lighting the world by a great central lumi- 
nary, is superior to man's petty contrivances for dispel- 
ling the darkness or changing midnight into noon. 

Thus far we have considered the subject from Mr. 
Giles's own stand-point. We have simply examined 
some of the more prominent of his chosen illustrations, 
and his reasons for a separate and distinct organization 
of the New Jerusalem on earth. We shall next pro- 
ceed to show that his theory respecting the orderly 
method of building the New Jerusalem is as clearly in 
conflict with the teachings of Swedenborg, as it is with 
enlightened reason, known facts, the laws of divine or- 
der operative in making old things new, and the whole 
spirit and genius of the New Dispensation. We will 
also show that the theory of the opposite school finds 
ample support in the writings of the great seer. For, 
although " it was not his mission to organize societies," it 
is to be presumed that a mind so capacious and enlight- 
ened as his, would have a pretty clear perception not 
9 G 



98 THE NEW CHURCH. 

only of the nature of the New Jerusalem, but of the 
manner in which its principles were to be best promul- 
gated, and soonest wrought into the fabric of human 
society. And that he had such perception, of which 
he has given us clear and repeated indications in his 
works, we will now proceed to show. 

SWEDENBORG'S METHOD OF BUILDING THE NEW 

JERUSALEM. 

Turning, then, to the herald of the New Church, we 
find that his idea of the nature and whereabout of this 
Church, and consequently his method of building it, are 
widely different from those of our New York brother 
and his school. We find that his teachings are alto- 
gether opposed to the theory of the separatists, and as 
clearly in accord with that of the opposite school. We 
find, too, that Mr. Giles is altogether mistaken when 
he says : " The writings of Swedenborg contain no di- 
rect instructions upon this subject." For the subject 
here referred to, as stated in Mr. G.'s own language, is, 
" The New Jerusalem a New Church in outward form 
as well as in inward life." Certainly Swedenborg has 
given us some very positive instruction on this subject; 
and to some of it we now invite the reader's special at-, 
tention. 

The last chapter of Swedenborg's treatise on the Last 
Judgment, is on " the state of the world and of the 
church hereafter," that is, after the Judgment. And 
after telling us that no essential change in the natural 
world, or in political affairs, would result from the judg- 
ment which he had been permitted to witness in the 
world of spirits, " that the affairs of states, peace, trea- 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 99 

ties and wars, with all other things which belong to civil 
communities in general and in particular, will exist in 
the future as they have existed in the past," he adds : 
" But as for the state of the church, this will be dis- 
similar hereafter." Dissimilar in what respect ? " In 
outward form as well as in inward life," according to 
the belief of Mr. Giles and his school ? Quite the con- 
trary. " It will be similar, indeed, in the outward 
form," continues Swedenborg, " but dissimilar in the in- 
ward. To outward appearance, divided churches [i. e. 
different denominations or ecclesiastical organizations] 
will exist as heretofore ; their doctrines will be taught 
[i. e. set forth in their creeds] as heretofore ; and the 
same religions as now will exist among the Gentiles." 
But men in all the churches will think differently from 
what they did formerly. They will have different ideas 
of God, and their relations to Him, as well as of life, 
duty, immortality, and the nature and way of salvation. 
They will think differently on all such subjects, however 
their printed creeds may remain unchanged, because 
they will think freely and conclude rationally. As 
Swedenborg further says : " Henceforth the man of the 
church will be in a more free state of thinking on mat- 
ters of faith, that is, on spiritual things which relate 
to heaven, because spiritual liberty has been restored 
to him." 

Here we have an explicit declaration that the New 
Church is not to be a new organization, or new " in out- 
ward form," as Mr. Giles believes ; but that outwardly 
the church would continue, as it had been, divided into 
different sects with creeds substantially as before ; while 
its inward life would be very different from what it had 



100 THE NEW CHURCH. 

been — would be altogether new. " Similar, indeed, in 
the outward form, but dissimilar in the inward." 

Take, for illustration of this idea, and proof also of 
its correctness, the Presbyterian Church of to-day. In 
its organization and printed creed, thus " in its outward 
form," that church is substantially what it was a hun- 
dred years ago. But any one who has read " Truths 
for To-day," by Dr. David Swing, and who considers 
that the author of these admirable discourses filled to 
overflowing with the new light and life, was pronounced 
innocent by three-fourths of the Chicago Presbytery on 
his trial for heresy, and that every Sunday he is still 
listened to by an attentive and admiring throng of 
nominal Presbyterians ; every one, I say, who considers 
this, after reading the volumes just referred to, will 
readily see that a church, while remaining unchanged 
"in the outward form," may come to be very different 
inwardly from what it once was ; may come to enter- 
tain totally different ideas on nearly all matters of faith, 
and cherish a totally different spirit. 

HIS EXPLICIT TEACHING ON THE SUBJECT. 

That Swedenborg meant to include the New Church 
when he spoke, in the passage just quoted, of " the 
church hereafter," is obvious from many considerations ; 
especially from what he says of " the church," in his 
'*' Continuation " of the same treatise, in passages like 
the following : 

1. "So long as there were congregations of such 
spirits [who were immersed in falsities] between heaven 
and the world, or between the Lord and the church, 



MR. GILES 9 VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 101 

man was unable to be enlightened. It was as when a 
sunbeam is cut off by a black interposing cloud, or as 
when the sun is eclipsed, and its light arrested by the 
interjacent moon. . . . Now, since all these interposing 
congregations were dissipated by the last judgment, it 
is plain that the communication, between heaven and 
the world-, or between the Lord and the church, has 
been restored." 

2. " Since communication has been restored by the 
last judgment, man is able to be enlightened and re- 
formed ; that is, to understand the divine truth of the 
Word, to receive it when understood, and to retain it 
when received, for the interposing obstacles are removed. 
And therefore, after the former heaven and the former 
earth passed away, John said that he ' saw a new heaven 
and a new earth, and then the holy city Jerusalem de- 
scending from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride 
adorned for her husband ; and heard One sitting upon 
the throne say, Behold I make all things new.' ( Apoc. 
xxi. 1, 2, 5.) That the church is understood by Jerusa- 
lem may be' seen in the doctrine concerning the Lord, 
n. 62-64." 

3. " The state of the world and of the church before 
the last judgment was as evening and night, but after 
it, as morning and day. When the light of truth does 
not appear there is a state of the church in the world 
like evening and night ; but when the light of truth 
appears, and the truth is received, there is a state of 
the church in the world like morning and day. Hence 
it is that these two states of the church are called 
evening and morning, and night and day, in the 
Word." 

4. " After the last judgment was accomplished, there 
was joy in heaven, and light also in the world of spirits, 
such as was not before. . . . There was light in the 
world of spirits, because the infernal societies which 
were removed had been interposed like clouds which 
darken the earth. A similar light also then arose [or 

9* 



102 THE NEW CHURCH. 

began to arise] among men in the world, giving them 
new enlightenment." — Contin. L. G., n. 11, 12, 13, 30. 

The teaching of these passages is too plain to be mis- 
understood. Swedenborg here represents the coming of 
the Lord, or the advent of new and higher truth from 
Him, subsequent to and in consequence of the Last 
Judgment, as the breaking of a new Morning upon the 
world; as the coining of new and rejoicing light, not 
merely to a small and select company of individuals 
who were to be separated from the great body of Chris- 
tian believers and organized apart by themselves, but 
to all Christendom; yes, and Heathendom also. He 
represents the change in the state of the church subse- 
quent to that event (a change, observe, in its internal 
character and condition, not in its outward form) as a 
'change from evening to morning, or from darkness to 
daylight. 

Now look at the correspondence of this, and see if it 
furnishes the least support to the theory of the separat- 
ists, or to the advocates of the New Jerusalem as a dis- 
tinct and separate organization. • When a new day 
dawns, it dawns for all the world. When the sun rises, 
does he shine on some small favored district merely, 
leaving the rest of the land in shadow and night ? No : 
he pours his kindling beams on all the continent. So 
when the Sun of Righteousness rises anew, He rises for 
all mankind, and not merely for a select few. He comes 
with a new illuminating power; and the effect of his 
coming is an increased general enlightenment. And 
this, moreover, agrees with the divine prediction re- 
specting his second appearing : " For as the lightning 
cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 103 

so shall also the coming of the Son of man be ; a predic- 
tion plainly pointing not to any partial but to a general 
enlightenment. And it is in complete accord, too, with 
Swedenborg's declarations about the removal of those 
obstructing clouds from the world of spirits, and the 
consequent influx of new light " among men in the 
world, giving them new enlightenment. ,, 

When this illumined writer, in the passages just 
quoted, speaks of "the church " before the last judg- 
ment, no one understands him as referring to any par- 
ticular Christian denomination, but to Christendom 
generally, to the aggregate of Christian believers or 
churches. Therefore it is plain that, by " the church 
hereafter " — the church which he tells us " will be 
similar, indeed, in the outward form, but dissimilar in 
the inward," to what it was previous to the Judgment 
— he can refer to nothing less broad or comprehensive. 
He clearly refers to the very same church, but inwardly 
renewed, enlightened and quickened as it had not been 
before, by the new and more powerful influx and the 
greater spiritual liberty that would be vouchsafed to 
all ; as the individual man when regenerated is identi- 
cally the same person as before — the same, that is, as 
to his body or external form — but made altogether 
new internally ; new in the spirit and temper of his 
mind ; new in his dominant thoughts and ruling pur- 
pose. 

And this church, that is, the aggregate of all the 
churches in Christendom, but enlightened and vivified 
by the new influx consequent upon the Last Judgment, 
is the only external or visible New Jerusalem that 
Swedenborg anywhere recognizes. And he does clearly 



104 THE NEW CHURCH. 

recognize and distinctly teach that this general enlighten- 
ment to which he refers, and which he said would come 
after and in consequence of the Last Judgment, is what 
is to be understood by the descent of the New Jerusalem 
from God out of heaven. For, after referring to this 
enlightenment in the second of the paragraphs above 
quoted, he adds : " And, therefore, after the former 
heaven and earth passed away, John said that he saw a 
new heaven and a new earth, and then the holy city 
Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, 7 ' &c. ; 
thus plainly teaching that this wide and general en- 
lightenment of mankind was in accordance with, and 
in fulfilment of, the true spirit and purport of that 
magnificent vision. Otherwise there would be no mean- 
ing and no force in the word " therefore/' in that con- 
nection, and no pertinence in his quoting the apostle's 
vision. 

We learn, then, from the passages above cited, that 
the New Church, according to Swedenborg, is not a new 
ecclesiastical organization ; not new " in outward form," 
as maintained by Mr. Giles and his school, but new 
only in " the inward form " — new in thought, feeling 
and purpose — new in its spirit and life. The various 
religious organizations of Christendom which existed in 
his time were to continue substantially as they then 
were, both in name and in outward appearance; but 
their spirit or inward life was to be very different. 
How else are we to interpret his language when he says 
that " the church hereafter will be similar in the out- 
ward form [to what it had been], but dissimilar in the 
inward " ? By " the church " here mentioned, he clearly 
means the aggregate of churches in Christendom ; for 



MB. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 105 

he immediately adds, by way of explanation, that 
" churches, divided as to outward appearance, will con- 
tinue to exist as heretofore ; " an expression which 
plainly intimates that the division would be more in ap- 
pearance than in reality. 

And he further tells us that these churches, in con- 
sequence of the freer and fuller influx of truth from 
God out of heaven, would be greatly enlightened ; so 
much so that their state hereafter, compared with what 
it had been previously, would be as morning or day 
compared with evening or night ; and that this increased 
enlightenment would result from the increased freedom 
of thought on matters of faith, which was sure to follow 
as one of the consequences of the Last Judgment ; for, 
as the angels assured him, " the slavery and captivity 
in which the man of the church [that is, Christians 
generally] was formerly, is now removed ; so that, from 
restored liberty, he can, if he desires, more easily per- 
ceive interior truths." (L. J. 74.) And this increase 
of religious liberty, and consequent influx of new light 
from heaven, is afterwards referred to as the fulfillment 
of John's prophetic vision of a new heaven and a new 
earth, and the descent of the holy city New Jerusalem. 

From all of which it is plain that the New Jerusalem, 
as Swedenborg saw it, was not to be a new church- 
organization, but a new and renovated state of the then 
existing churches, and of the entire moral world. And 
he saw, too, that this renovation would take place slowly, 
the freest and best minds everywhere coming gradually 
to see and reject one old error after another, and in its 
place receive the new truth ; the process corresponding 
in all respects with that of building a material city 
anew on the site of an old one. 



106 THE NEW CHURCH. 

HIS EXPLANATION OF REV. {chapter xii.) REFUTES MR. 
GILES' THEORY. 

Then, if we turn to Swedenborg's exposition of the 
12th chapter of the Apocalypse, we shall find abundant 
confirmation of what has already been said, as well as 
of the theory we are advocating. For he there teaches 
that it is the purpose of Divine Providence that the 
New Church remain in, and mixed up with, the Old ; 
and not only so, but that it can be better nourished and 
protected, and its prosperity and growth more surely 
promoted, by remaining there. 

His exposition of this whole chapter is deeply inter- 
esting. But it is only necessary for our present purpose 
that we give his explanation of a few of the symbols 
there mentioned; such as, the woman that appeared 
in heaven clothed with the sun ; the male child that 
she brought forth ; the great red dragon that stood be- 
fore her ready to devour her child as soon as it was 
born ; the woman's flight into the wilderness, where she 
hath a place prepared of God; and the earth that 
helped her by swallowing up the flood that the dragon 
cast out of his mouth. And it may be more satisfactory 
as well as useful to give the explanation of these sym- 
bols in his own words. 

" The woman treated of in this chapter, 1 ' he says, " is 
the same who is called the Bride, the Lamb's wife, which 
was the holy city Jerusalem descending from God out 
of heaven." (Ap. Ex. 724.) " This woman signifies 
the New Church which is to be established by the Lord 
after the end of the present church in the Christian 
world." (Ibid. 707.) 

" The male child that she brought forth signifies the 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 107 

doctrine of truth, which is for the New Church called 
the New Jerusalem. . . . The genuine doctrine of the 
Church is the doctrine of good, that is, the doctrine of 
life, which is that of love to the Lord and charity to- 
wards the neighbor ; but still it is a doctrine of truth, 
for the doctrine teaches life, love and charity, and so 
far as it teaches these it is the truth. . . . The doctrine 
which is here signified by a male child is especially that 
of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor, 
that is, the doctrine of the good of life." (Ibid. 724.) 

" The sensual who are meant by the dragon, are those 
who see nothing from the light of heaven, but only from 
the light of the world. . . . They who specifically have 
reference to the head of the dragon are those who are 
in faith, which is a faith separate from charity, and have 
confirmed themselves therein in doctrine and in life. . . . 
These are, for the most part, learned dignitaries, but 
few among the common people ; the reason is, that the 
former consider those things as the secrets of theology 
which cannot be understood by the common people by 
reason of their secular employments. Another reason 
why these are dragons as to the head, is that they per- 
vert and falsify all the things of the Word which teach 
love, charity and life ; for the Word viewed in itself, is 
only the doctrine of love to the Lord and charity to- 
wards the neighbor; and in no case is it the doctrine of 
faith separate from charity." (Ibid. 714.) 

The flight of the woman into the wilderness denotes 
the abiding of the New Church " among those who are 
not in truths, because not in good." (Ibid. 730.) " ' That 
she might be nourished there a time, and times, and 
half a time, from the face of the serpent/ signifies until 
the church grows and comes to its fulness." (Ibid. 761.) 

" ( And the earth helped the woman ; and the earth 
opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the 
dragon cast out of his mouth/ signifies that they who 
are of the church which is not in truths, afforded assist- 



108 THE NEW CHURCH. 

ance and received not the subtle reasonings of those 
who were principled in faith separate from charity. . . . 
By the earth here is meant the earth of the wilderness 
into which the woman fled, and where she had a place 
prepared of God. To help the woman means to afford 
assistance to the New Church which is called the Holy 
Jerusalem. To open her mouth and swallow up the 
flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth, denotes 
not to receive the subtle reasonings of those who were 
principled in faith separate from charity ; for the flood 
of waters which the dragon cast out of his mouth signi- 
fies subtle reasonings from falsities ; and to open the 
mouth and swallow, when predicated of the church, 
which is signified by the earth, means to take away ; and 
since a thing is taken away when it is not received, it- 
means not to receive. 

" These things are to be understood in this manner : 
It is said above that the woman fled into the wilderness, 
where she hath a place prepared of God, and afterwards 
that she got the wings of an eagle and flew to her own 
place ; by which is signified that the church which is 
called the New Jerusalem, is to tarry among those who 
are in the doctrine of faith separate from charity, while 
it grows to its fulness, until provision is made for its re- 
ception among greater numbers. But in that church 
there are dragons who separate faith from good works, 
not only in doctrine but also in life ; whereas the rest 
in the same church, who live the life of faith which is 
charity, are not dragons although among them ; for 
they think it is agreeable to doctrine that faith pro- 
duces the fruits which are good works, and that the 
faith which justifies and saves is to believe those things 
which are in the Word and do them. But the dragons 
are of an entirely different way of thinking. But the 
former do not comprehend the sentiments of these lat- 
ter ; and since they do not comprehend, neither do they 
receive them. From which it is manifest that the 
church consisting of those who are not dragons, is meant 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 109 

by the earth which helped the woman, and swallowed 
up the stream which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 

" But what is the nature and character of the reason- 
ings which are meant by the dragon, concerning the 
separation of faith from good works, and concerning 
their union, and how subtle and at the same time per- 
nicious those reasonings are, will, by Divine permission, 
be revealed elsewhere; likewise that those reasonings 
have place only with the learned rulers of the church, 
and are not known to, because not understood by, the 
people ; and that for this reason the New Church which 
is called the holy Jerusalem, is helped by these latter, 
and also increases." (Ap. Ex. 764.) 

The meaning of all this is sufficiently plain. And its 
bearing upon the question under consideration, is as 
direct and positive as its teaching is obvious. The 
woman that the seer beheld in vision represented the 
New Church, and her male child the doctrine of this 
church, " especially that of love to the Lord and charity 
towards the neighbor/' which is declared to be " the 
genuine doctrine of this church." The great red dragon 
was a representative of the old dogma of salvation by 
faith alone, which is forever opposed, yea, in ceaseless 
and deadly hostility, to this new and heavenly doctrine, 
and ever ready therefore to destroy its life. All who 
accept this new doctrine, and live it, belong to the New 
Jerusalem. And it was the purpose of Divine Provi- 
dence, disclosed to John in the vision recorded in this 
12th chapter of the Apocalypse, that these people should 
not separate themselves from their respective commu- 
nions and form a new and distinct organization, but 
that they should " tarry among those who are in the 
doctrine of faith separate from charity, while the New 
10 



110 THE NEW CHURCH. 

Church grows to its fulness." And the growth and 
prosperity of this church are not to be hindered, but 
" helped " by their tarrying there. For although there 
are dragons in those communions, particularly among 
" the learned rulers of the church," whose " subtle and 
pernicious reasonings " are the flood that the dragon 
" cast out of his mouth after the woman," yet the mass 
of the people do not understand nor accept these reason- 
ings, being providentially kept in the belief that saving 
faith " is to believe those things which are in the Word, 
and do them." These are they who are meant by " the 
rest in the same church," who, because they " live the 
life of faith which is charity, are not dragons although 
among them." These, too, are meant by the earth 
which helped the woman ; " for by the earth here is 
meant the earth of the wilderness, into which the woman 
fled, and where she had a place prepared of God." 
But if, instead of seeking refuge and protection in 
the wilderness, in "the place prepared of God," the 
woman departs out of the wilderness, and attempts to 
build elsewhere a little Goshen for herself, what then ? 
Should we expect her to find here the strength and 
nourishment that would be vouchsafed her in " the 
place prepared of God," in the wilderness, " where," as 
the inspired prophet assures us, "she might be nour- 
ished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the 
face of the serpent " ? words which we find expounded 
by Swedenborg as follows : 

" That hereby is signified, until the church grows and 
comes to its fulness, appears from the signification of 
being nourished, as denoting to be sustained, and in the 
mean time to grow; and from the signification of a 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. HI 

time, and times, and half a time, as denoting the state 
of the increase of the church, even to its fulness." — 
(Ap. Ex. 761.) 

Surely no one will pretend that the New Church has 
already reached its maturity, or " grown and come to 
its fulness." If not, and if the condition of that organ- 
ization which has assumed the name, be by no means 
as healthy and prosperous as its members could desire, 
may not the explanation be sought and found in the 
fact that the receivers of the heavenly doctrines, instead 
of remaining in the wilderness, as Providence designed 
they should, and exercising a becoming and child-like 
trust that He who cares for the fowls of the air will not 
fail to nourish and protect his children in the place 
which He hath prepared for them, have gone forth out 
of the wilderness, and sought to spy out or make for 
themselves a better place than that prepared of God ? 
May they not, by pursuing a course prompted by self- 
regard and self-derived intelligence more than by the 
wisdom, love and humble trust which cometh from 
above, have deprived themselves of the " help " which 
the earth of the wilderness would have rendered, and 
which they, too, might have imparted, had they re- 
mained there? 

These are questions which deserve the serious con- 
sideration of all that school of professed New Church- 
men whom Mr. Giles represents. 

HIS ILLUSTRATIONS IN CONFLICT WITH MR. GILES' 

THEORY. 

Then, if we turn to Swedenborg's illustrations of the 
end or consummation of the Old, and the establishment 



112 THE NEW CHURCH. 

or up-building of a New Church, we shall find them all 
harmonizing with, and confirmatory of, our view of the 
subject, and furnishing additional support to the con- 
clusion already reached. Thus, in his chapter on " The 
Consummation of the Age," he says : 

" The consummation of the age [and the coming of 
a New Church, which is synchronical therewith] may 
be illustrated by various things in the natural world ; 
for here all things in general and in particular on earth 
grow old and decay, but by alternations which are 
called the circles of things. Time in general and in 
particular passes through these circles. In general the 
year passes from spring to summer, through this to 
autumn, then ends in winter, and from this returns to 
spring; but this is the circle of heat. In particular 
the day passes from morning to noon, through this to 
evening, ends in night, and then returns again to morn- 
ing ; but this is the circle of light. Every man also 
runs through the circle of nature ; he begins life in 
infancy, from that advances to youth and manhood, 
thence to old age, and dies. . . . When any thing has 
passed from its origin to its end, another like it arises. 
Thus every thing is born, dies, and is born again, in 
order that creation may be continued. A similar thing 
takes place with the church, because man is the church, 
and constitutes it in general." — (T. C. R. 756.) 

" Furthermore, the church [as a whole] appears to 
the Lord like one man ; and this greatest man must 
pass through his stages of life like an individual, that 
is to say, from infancy to youth, from this to manhood, 
and finally to old age ; and then, when he dies, he will 
rise again." — (Ibid. 762.) 

Now, consider attentively these illustrations, and 
carry out the correspondence. What is a new morn- 
ing, naturally viewed ? It is the advent of new light 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 113 

and warmth — a new and highly illumined condition 
of the self-same earth which, a little while before, was 
shrouded in darkness. It is not another earth, nor a 
portion severed from the old one and plunged into a 
blaze of new and recreating light. And the new spring, 
what is that, too, but a warmed, quickened and vitalized 
condition of the very same earth which, a little while 
before, was bound in icy fetters ? And death, what is 
that to the individual but the gate of entrance to a 
higher life ? The self-same individual rises that is said 
to die; and yet it is not that which dies that rises. 
What dies is but the " outer vesture of decay," sloughed 
off in due time to promote the higher development and 
larger growth of the individual. So, too, it is the same 
church which, passing through the valley of the shadow 
of death at the time of the Last Judgment, was to rise 
again through the reception of new light and life, and 
appear altogether new, bedecked with robes of beauty 
and comely ornaments — " prepared as a bride adorned 
for her husband." 

The regeneration of the individual, or the formation 
of the new spiritual man, is another illustration em- 
ployed by Swedenborg to teach us how the church in 
its largest form is made nt-w. And how completely 
this sustains the view we advocate, must be clear to all. 

" When a man," he says, " receives the Lord, which 
he does when he acknowledges Him [as revealed in the 
letter of the Word] as his God, Creator, Redeemer and 
Saviour, then is His first coming which is called the 
dawn. From this time the man begins to be intel- 
lectually enlightened in spiritual things, and to advance 
into a more and more interior wisdom. As he receives 
10* H 



114 THE NEW CHURCH. 

this wisdom from the Lord, he advances through morn- 
ing into day ; and this day lasts with him into old age, 
even to death. After death, he goes to heaven to the 
Lord Himself; and there, although he died an old man, 
he is restored to the morning of his life, and the rudi- 
ments of the wisdom implanted in him in the natural 
world grow to eternity." — (T. C. K. 766.) 

Now with respect to this church in the smallest form 
(the individual) the new man is formed by regeneration, 
not apart and separate from, but right within, the old. 
It is a slow and gradual process. It takes place as one 
error after ' another is seen and confessed, and its op- 
posite truth accepted and obeyed ; and as one evil after 
another is acknowledged, and in the Lord's strength 
resisted and overcome. And in a precisely similar way 
is the church in its largest form to be made new. The 
New is not to be formed outside of or apart from the 
Old, but right within it, and through conflict with its 
various falsities and evils, as these become manifest. 
One falsity after another will be seen and exposed, now 
by this individual and now by that ; now in one locality 
and now in another ; now by the pulpit, now by the 
platform, and now by that modern Titan, the press. 
And in place of the exposed and rejected falsities, new 
truths, or higher forms of old ones, will be gradually 
received ; and victories more and more complete will 
be successively achieved over individual and social 
evils. 

Thus will the New Church come. Thus must it come, 
according to the teachings of the illumined Swede. 
Thus may it be seen already coming ; not as a new 
visible organization or sect, but as a new and ever- 



MR. GILES' VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 115 

increasing general intelligence, a new and larger tolera- 
tion, a new and deeper and wiser thinking on all sub- 
jects, especially religious subjects, a new spirit, a new 
temper, and a new life in all the sects. 

And while Swedenborg's illustrations of this' subject 
are seen to be all in perfect accord with the theory we 
advocate, and confirmatory of its truth, we submit that 
they furnish no support whatever to the theory of the 
separatists; nay, that they are utterly irreconcilable 
with that theory. 

NEVER ENCOURAGED SEPARATISM. 

Then in addition to the weight of evidence already 
furnished against the theory of the separatists, we have 
the illustrious seer's own example. He was a member 
of the Lutheran Church, and remained in external fel- 
lowship therewith till the day of his death ; and even 
received the communion from the hands of a minister 
of that church shortly before his decease — thus testify- 
ing to the validity of this holy ordinance when ad- 
ministered by one having no interest in and no knowl- 
edge of his doctrines. And not only this, but in his 
long and intimate intercourse and correspondence with 
Eev. Mr. Hartley, Doctors Beyer, Oetinger and others 
who had become full receivers of his teachings, we find 
not the slightest hint of the importance or propriety of 
their withdrawing from their respective communions on 
this account. How can we account for his example as 
well as his profound silence on this subject, if he had 
meant to favor the theory of separatism ? 

Then there are other passages in his writings which 



116 THE NE W CHUR CII. 

prove conclusively that he never contemplated any 
such withdrawal from other Christian communions as 
most of the receivers of his doctrines have practised 
and still encourage ; no, nor the building up of a new 
religious organization on the basis of his teachings. 
Take, for example, that near the close of the True 
Christian Religion, where he tells us how, and through 
what instrumentality for the most part, the New Church 
on earth would descend from the new angelic heaven. 
" This," he says, " cannot take place in a moment, but 
takes place as the falsities of the former church are re- 
moved. For what is new cannot enter where falsities 
have been previously ingenerated, until these are erad- 
icated, which will take place with the clergy, and thus 
with the laity." (784.) 

From this it appears that Swedenborg expected his 
writings would be read, and the truths they contain be 
gradually received, first by the clergy, and through 
them be communicated to the laity. For if, acting 
upon the theory of the separatists, the clergy should 
withdraw from their respective congregations as soon 
as they come to believe the new doctrines, where are 
the laity whom they are to instruct in these doctrines ? 
For, should they be called to preach to professedly New 
Church societies, the laity there have already been in- 
structed in, and become believers of, these doctrines ; so 
that they would have no opportunity of eradicating 
falsities there. And it is not very probable that they 
would be invited to preach to congregations who are as 
yet ignorant of these doctrines, after having proclaimed 
themselves Swedenborgians, and withdrawn from their 
own people because of their new beliefs. 



MR. GILES 9 VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 117 

But should they adopt the course pursued by Mr. 
Clowes, and remain, teaching their people the new truths 
and confirming them from the Word and by rational 
arguments as fast as they themselves receive them, their 
course would then answer the demands of the language 
in the passage just cited. As fast as the old falsities 
were uprooted from their own minds and the new truths 
implanted, they would assist their people to do the 
same. And so the descent of the New Jerusalem would 
take place in all such congregations, in precisely the 
manner seen and declared by Swedenborg. The erad- 
ication of the old errors and the insemination of the 
new truths would " take place with the clergy, and thus 
[or through them] with the laity." 

Yet, strange to say, the very thing which Sweden- 
borg, when explaining the manner of the descent of the 
New Jerusalem, says will take place, Mr. Giles declares 
to be utterly impossible. For he says : 

" The moment a New Churchman begins to teach the 
new doctrines, he comes into direct conflict with the 
old. There is no common ground, no middle way. He 
must remain silent, and that no honest and earnest New 
Churchman can do, or he must state views which are 
the opposite of common belief. Thus he becomes a 
disturber of the peace and the settled convictions of 
others. He is a foreign body w T hich cannot assimilate, 
and he must be expelled. He must seek to associate 
with those who stand spiritually on the same ground." 

Not only is this teaching of Mr. Giles contrary to 
that of Swedenborg, as well as to the prevailing spirit 
of the New Age, which is a tolerant, progressive, con- 
ciliatory, all-reconciling spirit, but it is as plainly con- 



118 THE NEW CHURCH. 

tradicted by numerous and well-known facts, to some 
of which we have already alluded. And it may be 
added that most of the secular and many of the religious 
papers of our times, whenever they have occasion to 
refer to Swedenborg or his teachings, do so with the 
utmost respect, and often in terms of high commen- 
dation. 

Then it is known that some fifteen thousand clergy- 
men and theological students in our country have, 
within the last few years, thankfully received (as a gift, 
it is true, yet themselves cheerfully paying the postage 
thereon) some of the more important of Swedenborg's 
theological works (T. C. R., H. H. and A. R.). "We 
may safely conclude, therefore, that some thousands of 
our American clergy are now reading these works with 
more or less interest, and accepting many of the truths 
therein taught. And is it to be presumed that they 
scrupulously refrain from communicating any of these 
truths to their people, because they happen to be in con- 
flict with the written creeds about which most of the 
laity of to-day think very little and care less ? The idea 
is preposterous ; and is, moreover, contrary to what is 
known to be the truth. For there are hundreds of 
ministers in our country belonging to different religious 
denominations, who are, to the edification and great joy 
of their flocks, and without being considered "disturbers 
of the peace " of their respective communions, at this 
time proclaiming with great clearness the essential 
truths of the New Church ; — some of them with, but 
most of them without, direct reference to Swedenborg 
or his teachings. And if a man offers you pure water, 
is it very essential that you know the particular spring 



MR. GILES* VIEW OF IT CONSIDERED. 119 

from which he dipped it ? And if he offers you fresh 
and invigorating truth, do you think or care much 
about the well from which he drew it? Enough to 
know that, if pure and refreshing — if it helps you to 
bear more patiently your daily burdens and to do more 
cheerfully and faithfully your daily work — it cannot 
be the preacher's own, but comes from the one exhaust- 
less living Fountain, and is a draught from the " pure 
river of water of life, which proceedeth out of the throne 
of God." What more than this is it needful to know ? 



III. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRACTICAL TENDENCY 
AND LEGITIMATE FRUITS OF THE POPULAR 
THEORY. 

I^HE spirit of modern investigation demands that all 
- theories be subjected to practical tests. We are never 
quite satisfied with the truth or falsity of any theory 
until we have seen it applied, and are thus convinced 
of its nature and tendency by having before us its nor- 
mal results. If the results are obviously beneficent, we 
accept them as the best possible evidence that the the- 
ory is true ; but if they are clearly mischievous, we at 
once conclude that there is something wrong in the 
theory. " For of thorns men do not gather' figs, nor- of 
a bramble bush gather they grapes." 

It has been shown in previous chapters that the New 
Church signified by the New Jerusalem in the Apoca- 
lypse, is not a sect, or a visible institution of any kind ; 
but that it consists of all those, and of those only, who 
acknowledge the Lord and religiously obey his com- 
mandments. We have seen that, according to Sweden- 
borg, all who accept and endeavor to live according to 
the one great doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, that of 
love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor, 
really belong to the New Jerusalem, whatever creed 
they may have subscribed or whatever be their external 
church relations. 

120 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 121 

But the prevailing theory among the professed re- 
ceivers of the new theology is different. It holds that 
the New Church is a visible institution founded on the 
doctrines revealed through Swedenborg; and that 
those, and those only, who accept these doctrines, be- 
long to or constitute this Church. All others are looked 
upon and spoken of as the Old Church, which is to be 
regarded as " a shell robbed of its kernel," " a body 
soulless and dead," without one spark of spiritual life, 
utterly forsaken of the Lord. 

Now we should not expect that such an idea as this, 
however sincerely entertained, could be otherwise than 
injurious to those who cherish it. We certainly should 
not expect it would promote the growth in them of true 
humility, or of a large, generous and catholic spirit. 
On the contrary we should expect it would foster pride, 
conceit, arrogance, intolerance, and other kindred traits. 
Regarding themselves as the Lord's own people or 
church to the exclusion of others, we should expect 
that the influx of heavenly life into their souls would 
be much hindered by this feeling of self-regard ; that 
they would be extremely impatient of all criticism of 
their sayings and doings, and extremely hostile toward 
their critics ; and that they would gradually fall more 
and more under the influence of spirits who despise 
others in comparison with themselves. These and other 
kindred evils we should naturally expect would result 
from the popular error in regard to the nature and 
whereabout of the New Jerusalem, which it is the pur- 
pose of these pages to expose. And we should expect 
that these evils would manifest themselves conspicuously 
in the doings of the collective body, or in the utterances 
11 



122 THE NEW CHURCH. 

of its high officials when speaking or assuming to speak 
for the collective body. Let us, therefore, glance at 
some of these doings and utterances which, however 
offensive to all generous minds, are but the legitimate 
offspring of that mistaken theory respecting the New 
Church which has been so widely accepted by the stu- 
dents of Swedenborg. 

FIRST ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE THE NEW CHURCH, 

The first attempt, of which there is any record, to 
organize the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem, and so to 
present it in a visible form here on earth, was made in 
England about ninety years ago. The movement was 
inaugurated under the prompting and leadership of 
Robert Hindmarsh ; and the purpose of it was, to use 
Mr. H.'s own language, "to bring forward the New 
Church in -its ultimate or external form." 

Mr. Hindmarsh and his associates in that movement 
were unquestionably sincere. They doubtless believed 
that what they undertook to do, was not only feasible 
but expedient and proper, and quite in accord with the 
Divine will and purpose. We see no reason for doubt- 
ing this. But their acquainfance with the teachings of 
Swedenborg was imperfect and superficial — necessarily 
so. Only a small portion of his works had as yet been 
translated into English, and most of them, therefore, 
remained as sealed books to all who could not read 
them in the original. The shadows of the former Dis- 
pensation were but just beginning to take their flight; 
and it would, indeed, have been strange if those zealous 
London gentlemen had understood the nature of the 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 123 

New Jerusalem, or had fully comprehended its large 
and catholic spirit. It would have been strange if, at 
that early day and under all the circumstances then ex- 
isting, they had been able to wholly free themselves 
from the blinding and belittling influences of sectarian 
bigotry, or from the Englishman's cherished notions 
about " the church " as a visible institution. It is not 
easy for people of the best intentions to do this even 
now ; and it was far more difficult then. 

After the lapse of nearly a century, with the increased 
light and better spirit which the rolling years have 
brought with them, and with our greater familiarity 
and consequent better understanding of the teachings 
of the illustrious Swede than the men of that day could 
be expected to have, we ought to be able to examine 
impartially that first attempt to organize the New Je- 
rusalem; and in the light of subsequent events as well 
as of Swedenborg's teachings, to form a just judgment 
of its wisdom and the spirit which prompted and con- 
trolled the movement. 

Mr. Hindmarsh, the prime mover and active manager 
in that enterprise, was a young man less than thirty 
years of age, and had been only four or five years a 
reader of Swedenborg. To an intellect of considerable 
brilliancy and strong argumentative powers, he united 
an extraordinary self-confidence and self-regard along 
with a large measure of that flaming zeal and sectarian 
spirit which characterized so many of the Wesleyan 
Methodists of that day with whom he had been for some 
time intimately associated. 



124 THE NEW CHURCH. 



THE "SELECT MEETING" IN LONDON, 178T. 

In 1787, when there were less than twenty interested 
readers of Swedenborg in the whole city of London, "a 
select meeting/' Mr. Hindmarsh tells us, was called in 
that city, of persons " most anxious to bring forward the 
New Church in its ultimate and external form." Thir- 
teen met together and unanimously agreed to certain 
declarations " on the Sunday preceding the day which 
was fixed upon for the formal and solemn commence- 
ment of the New Church in its external form." And 
the following declarations which were among those 
"unanimously approved of" at that meeting, are suf- 
ficient to show the mental obscurity in which those 
persons were with regard to the New Jerusalem and 
introduction into it, and the intensely sectarian spirit 
by which they were animated : 

" The full reception of the glorious truths of the New 
Church as revealed by Swedenborg, is essential to con- 
stitute a member of the New Church on earth, and 
thereby to admit him into an immediate conjunction 
with the Lord and consociation with the angels of the 
New Heavens. 

" Introduction into the New Church is solely through 
the spiritual correspondent, Baptism, performed in that 
Church. 

"Conjunction with the Lord and consociation with 
the angels of the New Heavens, are effected by the 
Holy Supper taken in the New Church according to its 
heavenly and divine correspondences." 

Such " declarations " as these could never have been 
made by men who had even partially comprehended 
the scope and genius of the New Dispensation, or who 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 125 

had formed any just conception of the nature and where- 
about of the New Jerusalem as unfolded by Swedenborg. 
Yet they are seen to be the legitimate offspring of that 
popular misconception which it is the main purpose of 
the present work to expose and correct. 

But how blinded by fanaticism or how bewildered and 
misled by sectarian zeal must those thirteen individuals 
have been, to have "unanimously approved of" decla- 
rations like the foregoing ! For see what preposterous 
assertions and claims are here, and what strange pre- 
sumption and self-conceit are revealed in them ! First, 
that no one can become conjoined to the Lord or con- 
sociated with the angels of the New .Heaven unless he 
be in "full reception" of the truths revealed through 
Swedenborg, and receive the Holy Supper at the hands 
of a professed New Church minister, or in communion 
with full receivers of the heavenly doctrines ! And no 
one can be introduced into the New Church (and it 
should be borne in mind that there was no other church 
on earth at the time these declarations were approved) 
except through baptism administered by a professed and 
full receiver of the heavenly doctrines — " baptism per- 
formed in that Church ! " 

Thus were all other churches and people in Christen- 
dom virtually excommunicated by these thirteen in- 
dividuals — cut off from conjunction with the Lord and 
fellowship with the angels ! All but themselves were 
declared to be outside the Holy City, and to be classed, 
therefore, with dogs, sorcerers, murderers, idolaters, and 
the like ! And, as further illustrating his blind zeal 
and sectarian spirit and erroneous conception of what 
the New Jerusalem really is, Mr. Hindmarsh, a few 
11* 



126 THE NEW CHURCH. 

months thereafter, seriously proposed that this Society, 
of which he was the ruling spirit and chief organizer, 
should henceforward be known as the Apocalyptic New 
Jerusalem ! And on Sunday, May 18, 1788, the Record 
kept by himself, says : 

" At a full meeting of the Society the question of 
altering the name of the Society was put and unani- 
mously approved of; in consequence of which the name 
is to be in future, ' The New Church signified by the New 
Jerusalem in the Revelation ' " / 

Think of that little company — less than twenty 
persons in all — gravely and "unanimously" declaring 
themselves to be " the Bride, the Lamb's wife ! " " the 
great city" (or what was typified and foreshadowed by 
it) which the seer of Patmos beheld in vision ! " the 
holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, 
having the glory of God " ! — the city of " pure gold " 
(the symbol of unselfish love) ; a city in which there 
was to be " no night," because " the glory of God did 
lighten it " ! and of which it is said, " the nations of 
them that are saved shall walk in the light of it, and 
the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor 
into it " ! — a city into which no evil person or thing 
should ever enter — " nothing that defileth or worketh 
abomination or maketh a lie, but they who are written 
in the Lamb's book of life ! " For all this, we see, is 
involved or implied in the resolution which we^are told 
passed unanimously, " Sunday, May 18, 1788." 

Could anything be farther from the catholic spirit or 
explicit teachings of Swedenborg, than was that first 
attempt to organize the New Jerusalem, viewed in con- 
nection with the declarations which were unanimously 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 127 

agreed to at that " select meeting " ? Was there ever 
a movement which betrayed a blinder zeal, a stronger 
misapprehension of a much revered author's teach- 
ings, or a more intensely sectarian spirit ? If so, it has 
never come to our knowledge. There have been many 
strange and fantastic tricks performed by religious bodies 
at sundry times, but we find no record of anything that 
surpasses this in blindness, folly or fanaticism. 

SAD RESULTS THAT SOON FOLLOWED. 

And how could an organization, conceived in the 
spirit that this was, and christened with such extraor- 
dinary presumption, hope to prosper ? Or, the more 
pertinent question now is, how did it prosper? Pre- 
cisely as might have been expected. The very next 
year after this earth-born or man-invented New Jeru- 
salem was formed, it was agitated and rent with intes- 
tine feuds. Some of its members were found guilty of 
gross immorality ; and its chief architect and master- 
builder, along with five others, was excommunicated, 
and remained till the day of his death without the pale 
of what he had, with such extraordinary presumption, 
proclaimed to be " the New Church signified by the 
New Jerusalem in the Revelation." 

u The Church," says the Remembrancer and Recorder, 
" which came into nominal existence on the proposition 
of young Robert Hindmarsh, was not long t in giving 
evidence of the Babylonish nature of its origin, and of 
the consequent impurities of its nature. . . . Accord- 
ing to the ' Minute-Book/ he [Mr. Hindmarsh] was the 
Secretary of the Society which met in the Inner Temple. 
He was the individual who first called together the re- 



128 



THE NEW OHURGH. 



ceivers in London. He, in concert with a few others, 
first acted in the setting up of a separate society, con- 
trary to the decision of the majority, according to his 
own testimony. Only thirteen individuals, himself in- 
cluded, signed the ' Minute-Book ' at the first meeting, 
as members. He was the Secretary for more than two 
years, During which time the rules were drawn up ; 
the forms of Baptism and of the Lord's Supper ; the 
forms for ordination of ministers ; also the propositions 
for the first Conference ; the letter to the non-separated 
friends at. Manchester ; the whole of the proceedings of 
the first Conference — all of which are regularly entered 
in the ' Minute-Book ' in his hand-writing, except the 
letter to the Manchester friends. Up to May 4th, 1789, 
the whole Book, from the first day, seems to be in his 
hand-writing. And from that date to April 11th, 1790, 
the account of the proceedings seems to have been torn 
out. From page 46 to 63, is missing. And we have 
been informed that it was not deemed advisable to 
let posterity see the nature of the records contained 
therein." 

But of the nature of the transactions here referred 
to, some idea may be formed from the following allusion 
to them in an address by Rev. Manoah Sibley : 

" I am here under the necessity of stating, however 
reluctantly, that in the next year, 1789, a very sorrow- 
ful occurrence befel the infant New Church, whereby 
the flood-gates of immorality were in danger of being 
thrown open to her inevitable destruction. The Church 
held many solemn meetings on the occasion, which 
ended in withdrawing herself from six of her members, 
viz. : Robert Hindmarsh, Henry Servante, Charles 
Berns Wadstrom, Augustus Nordenskjold, George Rob- 
inson, and Alexander Wilderspin. On the Church 
coming to this conclusion, Mr. Robert Hindmarsh re- 
marked that he would never put it in the power of any 
Society again to cut him off, as he never would be a 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 129 

member of one. And I believe, notwithstanding his 
eminent services in the cause of the New Church, that, 
to his dying day he kept his word. . . . This grievous 
circumstance I kept locked up in my own bosom for 
many years ; and I would not now have mentioned it, 
had not Mr. Noble's statements called it forth." 

We are not surprised at this. What else could have 
been expected? We should, indeed, have been greatly 
surprised if nothing had occurred to disturb the peace 
or humble the pride of an organization conceived in 
such a spirit, and under such a strange misapprehen- 
sion of the teachings which its members professed to 
receive. 



THE SPIRIT OF THAT LONDON MOVEMENT EXEM- 
PLIFIED ON THIS SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC. 

The spirit which gives birth to an organization or 
which enters into it at its inception, is apt to remain 
with it as its moulding force and governing influence a 
long time after. And so it has been with the New 
Church organization. The same intensely sectarian 
spirit which prompted that movement in London, the 
same singular misconception of the nature and where- 
about of the New Jerusalem, and the same disposition 
to arrogate to themselves the exclusive right to the 
Christian ordinances and the exclusive claim to be 
considered the connecting link between heaven and 
earth, have continued in the organization both in Eng- 
land and the United States. True, individuals — dili- 
gent students and intelligent receivers of Swedenborg's 
teachings — in both countries, have not ceased to utter 
their earnest and indignant protest. But their protest 

I 



130 THE NEW CHURCH. 

has never received any candid consideration. So far 
from it, every thing which the organization and its 
representatives in this country could do, has been done 
to hide the views and arguments of the dissenters, and 
make these latter appear as unreasonable schismatics. 

That the reader may judge to what extent the spirit 
and views of that " select meeting " in London, (July 
29, 1787,) have prevailed in the soi-disant New Church 
in the United States, we will make a few quotations 
from published documents — and they shall be all from 
the pens of ministers of the third or highest degree. 

UNCHURCHING OTHER CHRISTIANS. 

In 1839, a Report on the subject of baptism, drawn 
up by the President of the General Convention of the 
New Church in the United States, (Rev. Thomas Worces- 
ter, D. D.) and signed by two other " ordaining ministers," 
was read before that body ; and in this Report we find, 
among other things of kindred character, the following : 

. " It is well to notice that He [the Lord] began by 
saying, ' All power is given unto me in heaven and in 
earth/ He then gives the powers there enumerated to 
the church. And he concludes by saying, ' And lo, I 
am with you all the days, until the consummation of 
the age.' It is well to notice this ; for it is because He 
who hath all power in heaven and in earth, was to be 
with them, that they were to be a church and were to 
have authority to act as a church. For this cause He 
gave them authority to teach or make disciples unto 
Him. For this cause He gave them authority to bap- 
tize into his name, and to perform all the other duties 
of a church. 

" But in the doctrines of the New Church we learn 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 131 

that the time for which He promised to be with the Old 
Church has expired ; that its age is consummated, and 
that it has come to an end. . We learn that the Lord 
was with it in all its states, until it came to an end, and 
that He then left it. 

"Now inasmuch as it was a church, and had author- 
ity to baptize and perform the other duties of a church, 
because He was with it; therefore, since He has left it, 
it has no authority or power to baptize or to perform 
any other church duty." 

And near the conclusion, after endeavoring to show 
that all other church organizations in Christendom ex- 
cept that of Swedenborgians (which this Eeport calls 
"the New Church,") have been forsaken of the Lord 
— have lost all true knowledge of Him and all vital 
union with Him, and therefore all authority or right to 
administer the Christian ordinances, the Eeport con- 
tinues : 

" For this reason they are no longer a church ; for 
this reason they have no authority or power to make 
disciples unto Him ; for this reason they have no au- 
thority or power to baptize into his name, and thus to 
produce insertion among Christians in the spiritual 
world ; and for this reason they have no authority or 
power to perform any of the duties of a church. 

" From the light of the Word and the doctrines of 
the Church we therefore conclude, that baptism in the 
Old Church is not valid baptism ; and consequently 
that we ought to be baptized in coming into the New 
Church." — {New Jerusalem Magazine for July, 1839, 
pp. 379, 381.) 

And in accordance with the spirit and tenor of the 
foregoing extracts, this Report concludes : 

" The Rule of Order which was referred to [and 



132 THE NEW CHURCH. 

which the Ordaining Ministers were requested to con- 
sider and report upon] is expressed in the following 
words : ' If any of them have not been baptized into 
the New Church, they shall then receive that ordi- 
nance.' 

" Your Committee would propose that the words ' into 
the New Church ' should be omitted ; because, when we 
speak of baptism, we wish to be understood as referring 
to real baptism ; and because we regard baptism into 
the New Church as the only real baptism." 

And the Kecord of the Convention's proceedings for 
that year, referring to this Report, says : 

" The Report of the Ordaining Ministers read this 
morning, was accepted and ordered to be printed with 
the Journal ; and it was 

" Resolved, That Sec. 4, Art. I., Chap. II., be amended 
in conformity with the recommendation at the close of 
the above report." 

There does not appear, from the Record, to have 
been the slightest opposition in the Convention to this 
recommendation, not even enough to awaken discus- 
sion. And when we consider that this Report was 
drawn up by one of the most distinguished and highly 
honored members of the General Convention, whose 
full sympathy with the views and polity of that body 
may be inferred from the fact that he was its President 
(chosen annually) for more than thirty consecutive 
years — and that it bears the signatures of two other 
ministers of the highest degree, it is not strange that 
its views should have been generally acquiesced in by 
the New Church organization, and its recommendation 
almost universally adopted by New Church societies. 

That the same misconception of Swedenborg's teach- 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 133 

ings, the same mistake as to where and what the New 
Church is, and the same sectarian spirit which prompted 
the first organization in England, were chiefly instru- 
mental in shaping this Report, there can be no doubt. 
Its grand error — that which underlies all its reasoning 
and necessarily vitiates its conclusions — lies in the 
assumption that the Old Church means all the people 
(no matter what their lives or their internal character) 
who profess faith in the old formulas, and belong to the 
old organizations ; and that the New Church is also a 
visible body, embracing only those who profess faith in 
the new doctrines, and join the new organization based 
thereon. Starting with this assumption, and aided by 
the strong sectarian feeling which we should naturally 
expect would accompany it, there was no great difficulty 
in reaching the conclusion that Swedenborgians are the 
only real Christians now in the world ; that they only 
have any knowledge of the Lord, or are capable of 
leading others into his kingdom ; that they only have 
authority to teach and baptize in his name, or to per- 
form any other duties or offices of a Christian church. 
And if others claim to be Christians, and attempt to 
administer the Christian ordinances, their acts (being 
unauthorized) are not to be recognized as possessing 
any validity. They are to be considered null and void. 
And sixteen years later (1855), another Report on 
the same subject, drawn up by the same distinguished 
gentleman (the President of the General Convention) 
and endorsed by its " Committee of Ministers," was 
read before that body ; and its conclusions were accepted 
without dissent, if we may judge from its Journal of 
Proceedings. And in this later Report, although the 
12 



134 THE NEW CHURCH. 

Committee say they " have paid much attention to the 
subject," we find an exhibition of the self- same spirit as 
in the Report of 1839, and the same extraordinary 
misapprehension of Swedenborg's teachings both upon 
the subject of baptism and the nature and whereabout 
of the New Church. This Report insists that when 
Swedenborg speaks of a person's being introduced into 
the church by baptism, he means the church as con- 
sisting of those, and of those only, who receive the doc- 
trines taught by himself, and who have therefore taken 
the name of the New Church. And as he always 
speaks of baptism as a Christian ordinance, or as a sign 
of introduction into the Christian church, the inevitable 
conclusion from the assumptions and the line of argu- 
ment in this Report, is, that no others than Swedenbor- 
gians are now to be regarded as Christians. The ani- 
mus of the Report may be gathered from the following 
paragraphs : 

" Having now these views of the uses of baptism, we 
are ready to answer the question as to what church 
Swedenborg refers to when he says that the first use of 
baptism is introduction into the church. We answer 
that he refers to a church that leads those who come 
into it into a knowledge and acknowledgment of the 
Lord Jesus Christ; and inasmuch as the New Church 
performs this use, and no other church performs it, 
therefore he refers to the New Church. 

" Some, however, have entertained the idea that Swe- 
denborg referred to all churches that call themselves 
Christian churches. We do not think it possible that 
this can be his meaning; first, because he teaches in 
this very chapter as well as in all other parts of his 
works, that the old church, with all its branches, has 
come to its end ; and he^is here giving instruction to 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 135 

the New Church, which is to take the place of the old ; 
it does not seem possible, therefore, that, when he is 
speaking of the uses of introduction into the church, he 
should refer to the old as well as the new. It seems 
impossible that he should mean to teach that introduc- 
tion into the old church is attended by the same benefits 
as introduction into the new. 

" Secondly : It is still more manifest that this could 
not be his meaning, because the old church came to an 
end, for the reason that it was not in the true knowl- 
edge and acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
and consequently it could not bring others into that 
knowledge and acknowledgment. It would be absurd, 
it would be insane, for him to recommend that we 
should go to a certain place for a thing, when he knew 
that the thing was not there. So it would be insane 
for him to send us to a thousand places for a certain 
thing, when he knew that it was in one of those places, 
and not in the nine hundred and ninety-nine, and when 
he could have used the proper words to designate the 
place, as well as any other words. 

" Thirdly : This cannot be his meaning, because he 
knew that the old church had come to an end. He 
had himself been the principal medium by which its 
falsities were exposed ; he had seen and shown that 
they did not know and acknowledge the Lord, and that 
they did not introduce others into that knowledge and 
acknowledgment, — or, in other words, that they were 
not a church, and did not perform the uses of a church. 

"Fourthly : This, cannot be his meaning, because he 
knew that a New Church was established ; because he 
was the principal medium by which its doctrines were 
revealed ; because he knew that this church was in the 
knowledge and acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and that it would lead others into that knowl- 
edge and acknowledgment, — or, in other words, he 
knew that it was a church, and that it would perform 
the uses of a church." — {Journal for 1855, p. 106.) 



136 THE NEW CHURCH. 

The great underlying error of this Report (as of the 
previous one above referred to — 1839), and that which 
vitiates all its conclusions, is the assumption that the 
Lord's true church is a sect, or an organized and visible 
body — that is, a body whose members are all known, 
whose boundaries are determined primarily by the doc- 
trines it professes, and whose limits therefore are as 
sharply defined as those of a railroad corporation or a 
bank directory. The body holding the true doctrines 
(this is the shape the argument takes) is the true 
church ; and all who accept the doctrines and come into 
organic union with the body through the authorized 
gate of baptism (whose key is supposed to be exclu- 
sively in its possession) of course belong to this church. 
All others are outside of it. And as the doctrines 
taught by Swedenborg are true, being revealed to him 
from heaven, therefore the receivers of these doctrines, 
— that body of people popularly known as Swedenbor- 
gians, — are now the Lord's true church on earth. No 
others are to be reckoned as members, or as having au- 
thority from Him to teach or baptize or make disciples 
in his name, or to perform any of the acts or uses of a 
church. 

And this fundamental error is followed by assump- 
tions equally strange and equally groundless. Thus it 
is assumed that when Swedenborg speaks of baptism 
as a sign of introduction into the Christian church, he 
means by " the Christian church" none but those who 
receive the doctrines taught by himself. It is assumed 
that no others are in the knowledge and acknowl- 
edgment of the Lord Jesus Christ; and that no others, 
therefore, are able to lead people to this knowledge and 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 137 

acknowledgment: That Swedenborgians alone, to the 
exclusion of all others, are " the New Church " of which 
the great seer so often speaks: That .the Lord is with 
them in a peculiar sense and a preeminent degree: 
That they alone are worthy to bear the Christian name : 
That they alone are the Lord's true followers, and, as such, 
are alone capable of " leading others into a knowledge 
and acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ, and into 
a life corresponding to His life " : That no others are to 
be regarded as Christians — that no others, indeed, are 
Christians in the sense in which Swedenborg uses the 
term : That all other churches which " call themselves 
Christian churches/' have no right to the name : That 
they are not Christians in reality : That, viewed in the 
aggregate, they are "the old church" which is dead 
and consummated, being utterly forsaken of Him whose 
presence and indwelling can alone impart life : And 
that the ordinance of baptism, therefore, when adminis- 
tered in other Christian communions, or by other than 
Swedenborgian hands, is without its proper efficacy or 
validity — in a word, is not Christian baptism. 

Who does not recognize in these assumptions the 
same misunderstanding of the New Dispensation and 
the same intensely sectarian spirit which characterized 
the movement and declarations in London under Robert 
Hindmarsh ? And think of making, or attempting to 
make, the sensible, large-hearted and truly catholic 
Swedenborg, stand sponser for all this ! Think of claim- 
ing for such views and teachings even the authentication 
and seal of Heaven ! Never have we known a more 
egregious misconception of a great author's meaning by 
his professed friends and admirers, or a more melan- 
12* 



138 THE NEW CHURCH. 

choly perversion or straying away from the whole spirit 
of his teachings. 

MORE UNREASONABLE STILL. 

But we have further illustrations to offer — some of 
them breathing a still more offensively sectarian odor, 
and revealing a more extraordinary misconception of 
the teachings of Swedenborg and the whole spirit and 
genius of the New Dispensation. And we shall draw 
them, not from the crude utterances of laymen, but 
from the well-considered and published writings of 
ministers of the highest degree — " Ordaining minis- 
ters." 

In the New Church Repository for November, 1848, 
is an article on " The Question of Re-baptism re-con- 
sidered," from the pen of an ordaining minister of the 
General Convention (Rev. David Powell *), from which 
we extract the following : 

" It is a great mistake to suppose that ' those who 
are in some goodness and truth from the Word/ and 
out of which the Lord is said to constitute a New 
Church, remain good New Churchmen in the Old 
Church, in external communion with it, in the partici- 
pation of its ordinances and sacraments, conforming to 
its ceremonies and observances, subject to its jurisdic- 
tion and control, and acquiescing in all its external 
manifestations, yet being interiorly of the true New 

* This article was written by Mr. Powell ; but, for reasons 
not necessary to state here, its authorship was assumed by an- 
other gentleman whose initials it bears, and who subsequently 
communicated this fact to the writer, expressing at the same 
time his regret that he had permitted himself to be used in 
that way. 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 139 

Christian Church, — that therefore the sacraments of 
which they partake, and particularly that of baptism, 
receiving it according to New Church doctrine and life, 
is in their case efficacious New Church baptism. It 
matters not, according to this view, that the Old Church 
belief and forms are totally vitiated and vastated, and 
that there is not a spark of spiritual life remaining in 
it — that it is a dead carcass — that the idea of three 
Gods is in all [every] the most minute particle of their 
belief and sacraments — that it is the spiritual whore- 
dom of the evil and the false — that it is the spiritual 
Sodom and Egypt." p. 678. 

" The New Church does not therefore consist of the 
few persons remaining in the Old Church, . . . but it 
is a separate and independent organization of persons 
as subjects, in New Church doctrines and life apart from 
Old Church doctrines and life. . . . Hence it is plain 
that this New Church must have its own ordinances 
and sacraments, which are indispensable to its being a 
church ; so that it is with this Church among men that 
the New Heaven is conjoined, and thus with the Lord." 
p. 678-9. 

" If the Old Church, then, is entirely vastated, and 
all its ordinances and sacraments corrupt ; its offices 
and administrations having no spiritual life ; how can 
the sacrament of baptism, performed by its function- 
aries, be efficacious New Church baptism ? So far as 
the New Church is concerned, is not the act void and 
of none effect ? How can it give insertion into the New 
Heaven to which it is not conjoined t The act has no 
positive good in it ; and from the disjunction and non- 
communication of the Old Church with the New Heav- 
ens, it falls far short of any spiritual efficacy by its 
'pretended insertion of the subject into the societies of 
the New Heaven." p. 679. 

" If the ' Christian denominations about us are not the 
Old Church,' who is? If a ' man belonging to an Epis- 



140 THE NEW CHURCH. 

copalian or Presbyterian body of Christians,' does not 
belong to the Old Church, to what church does he 
belong? Are Episcopalians and Presbyterians New 
Churchmen? . . . Does not a New Churchman mean 
by the ' Old Church ' the ' dead carcass ' in which there 
is no spiritual life ? " p. 680. 

And in another part of his article this writer declares 
the New Church, which he holds to be " a separate and 
independent organization of persons/' to be "purely 
good " ; and the Old Church, by which term he desig- 
nates all the other church organizations in Christendom, 
as " entirely evil." And to suppose, therefore, that this 
latter might be the external of a church whereof the 
former is the internal, " would lead/' he thinks, " to 
the revolting absurdity that heaven might have been 
contained in the bosom of hell." p. 675. Which, in 
view of what he means by the New Church and the Old 
Church as explained by himself, is the same as saying, 
that " the independent organization of persons " known 
as the New Church, consists exclusively of angels, and 
that all the other Christian organizations are composed 
entirely of devils ! 

That intelligent men in this nineteenth century can 
harbor such an idea as this, seems hardly possible. 
But the fact that they do, is not less instructive than 
melancholy. It shows the tremendous power to blind 
and bewilder, which resides in the sect spirit. 

Another distinguished minister of " the General Con- 
vention of the New Jerusalem in the United States," 
(Rev. W. H. Benade — now an "ordaining minister") 
— in a sermon preached by him before that body, and 
subsequently published in one of its organs without a 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW, 141 

syllable of criticism or dissent by the editor — speaks 
of the organization known as the New Church, as " the 
new visible body of the Lord's presence with men," and 
declares this body to be "the only existing church." 
And looking upon all the other religious organizations 
in Christendom as constituting the Old Church, he says 
of this latter : 

" It exists as a church in mere outward form and 
name, as a hollow substance of that which once was, 
as a shell robbed of its kernel, as a body without 
a soul, utterly incapable of affording — what it does 
not possess — support or sustenance of life either spir- 
itual or natural. When the Lord left that church, 
its existence, as such, ceased forever ; for the Church is 
the visible body of the Lord's Divine Humanity in the 
world ; and when He no longer dwells in it, then is that 
body soulless and dead, and must necessarily sink into 
decay and corruption." * 

* Although it is nearly twenty years since this sermon was 
delivered, the author's views on the subject therein discussed 
seem to have undergone no change or modification whatever. 
This was shown in an address made by Mr. Benade at a large 
public meeting held in the New Church temple in Philadelphia 
one evening during the last session of the General Convention. 
The subject of the Address was " the relation of the New Church 
to the Old." And in the course of his remarks the speaker said : 
" Their relation is that of opposites. It is as the relation of light 
to darkness, of truth to falsity, of good to evil, of heaven to 
hell " ; leaving his hearers to draw the charitable (?) conclusion 
that all there is now of heaven and the church on earth, is inside 
the Swedenborgian or professed New Church body; and all 
there is of hell is outside — or in the bodies which Mr. Benade 
and his school denominate in the aggregate " the Old Church." 

We can hardly conceive of utterances that could have pre- 
sented Swedenborg and his teachings in a more false or offen- 



142 THE NEW CHURCH. 

Is this the spirit of the New Jerusalem? — we are 
again constrained to ask. This the teaching of the 
great and catholic Swedenborg who was chosen to usher 
in the New Dispensation ? — a dispensation of love so 
exalted and charity so broad that mere difference in 
belief or doctrinal statement will be regarded as of no 
account where the life is righteous, or where the ends and 
aims seem to be pure and holy ; and when each one imbued 
with the spirit and principles of heaven, " will say of 
another, in whatsoever doctrine or in whatsoever exter- 
nal worship he is principled, This is my brother : I see 
that he worships the Lord, and that he is a good man." 
— A. C. 2385. 

Yet the sermon from which the above is quoted, 
which so confidently declares the great body of Chris- 
tian believers — all, indeed, except Swedenborgians — 
to be utterly forsaken of the Lord — "a shell robbed 
of its kernel " — " a body soulless and dead " and fast 
sinking into corruption — destitute of one spark of 
spiritual life — this sermon, listened to with much com- 
placency by a large audience at the time of its delivery, 
was shortly after published in the Boston New Jerusalem 
Magazine, without a word of criticism, or a syllable of 
dissent. 

sive light to sensible and well-disposed people, than the address 
of that gentleman on the occasion referred to. One intelligent 
receiver of the heavenly doctrines among his hearers, remarked 
in a tone and with an apparent feeling of deep disgust : " If the 
views put forth in that address were a true expression of the 
spirit of the New Church or the teachings of Swedenborg, I 
would turn and run from both as from the fires of hell." And 
what sensible person not utterly blinded by the sect spirit, could 
fail to sympathize with him ? 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 143 

Did these brethren, who so firmly believe and boldly 
declare that the Lord's true church on earth is now 
confined exclusively to the small handful of people 
commonly known as " Swedenborgians," never read the 
following instructive passage in the " Arcana Ccelestia " ? 
Whether they did or not, its introduction in this con- 
nection seems appropriate, and may be useful : 

" There are [in the spiritual world], societies of in- 
terior friendship . . . who were such in the life of 
the body, that they cordially loved those who were 
within their common association, and also embraced 
them as united in brotherhood. They believed that 
themselves alone were alive and in the light, and that 
they who were out of their society were respectively not 
alive and not in the light. This being their quality or 
character, they also thought that the Lord's heaven 
consisted solely of those few. But it was permitted me 
to tell them that the Lord's heaven is immense, consist- 
ing of every people and tongue, and that all are in it 
who have been principled in the good of love and faith. 
And it was shown that there are in heaven those who 
have relation to all the provinces of the body, both as 
to its exteriors and interiors ; but that, if they aspired 
further than to those things which correspond to their 
life, they could not have heaven, especially if they con- 
demned others who were out of their society ; and that, 
in such case their society is a society of interior friend- 
ship, the nature of which is such that they deprive 
others of the blessed principle of spiritual affection 
when they approach them ; for they regard them as not 
the elect and not alive, which thought when communi- 
cated induces what is sad. And yet this sadness, ac- 
cording to the law of order in the other life, returns to 
them." — A. C. 4805. 



144 THE NEW CHURCH. 



THE LOWEST DEPTH OF SECTARIANISM. 

But we have not yet sounded the lowest depths of 
this New Church (?) sectarianism. There is a lower 
deep still — a manifestation of the spirit of sect far 
more revolting to all charitable and cultured Christian 
people, than any we have yet seen ; — yes, and by 
ministers of the highest degree. But revolting as it is, 
we must acknowledge it to be the legitimate fruit of the 
same corrupt tree, only grown to greater ripeness. In 
this frankest expression and completest verbal manifes- 
tation, the real animus and legitimate tendency of the 
popular theory concerning the New Church can best be 
seen. 

In a pamphlet published some twenty years ago, on 
" The Importance and Necessity of an External Church/' 
by Rev. Richard De Charms, the writer speaks of " the 
baptism of the Old Church priest " (by which he means 
baptism administered by any one outside of the pro- 
fessedly New Church organization), and says : 

"It inoculates the person who is the subject of it, 
with all the corruption of the consummated church, so 
that the spirit of him who receives it absorbs that cor- 
ruption, and is wholly sickened by it, comparatively as 
the physical frame of the anatomist absorbs, and is 
sometimes sickened unto death, by the virus of the 
dead body that he is dissecting." p. 71. 

In another pamphlet, published in 1855, entitled 
" The validity of the Baptism of the Consummated 
Church viewed in its Relation to the New Church. 
By Thomas Wilks," — the author shows that he under- 
stands by " the New Church " that visible body of people 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 145 

organized under this name ; and that by " the consum- 
mated church " he means all the other church organiza- 
tions in Christendom, viewed in the aggregate — and 
which he (accepting the popular theory) designates as 
" the Old Church." And of this latter he says : 

" Now, since, according to the laws of the spiritual 
world, there can exist no communication between this 
church and heaven, and since all its worship is totally 
rejected as spiritual abomination in the sight of the 
Lord, it is evident that its perverted baptism, which, 
being included in the all of its worship, is necessarily 
rejected, does not insert its baptized among Christian 
spirits in that heaven from which it is, as to its internal 
state, so far separated and removed as to render com- 
munication with it impossible ; for it is certain, that in- 
sertion by baptism cannot be effected in heaven without 
communication with heaven." — p. 15. 

As if the external rite of baptism ever did, or ever 
can, under any circumstances, insert the subject thereof 
into an angelic society ! or as if the enlightened Swe- 
denborg ever taught any such doctrine ! But what is 
effected, in the judgment of this writer, by what he calls 
" Old Church baptism "? Into what society or class of 
spirits in the other world does it insert, if not into that 
of Christian spirits ? The question is answered in the 
same pamphlet : 

"The societies and congregations, in the spiritual 
world, into which its baptism inserts, are composed of 
such spirits only as are necessarily excluded from 
heaven." " It can insert into no other societies than 
those of the dragon and the false prophet." And the 
dragon," we are told, is " that old serpent, which is the 
devil and satan " ; and " the devil," says Swedenborg, 
13 K 



146 THE NEW CHURCH. 

" means those who are in evils as to life ; and satan, 
those who are in falsities as to doctrine." (A. B,. 841.) 
And "the false prophet means the clergy and the 
learned who have confirmed themselves in the religion 
of faith alone, and seduced the laity and common peo- 
ple " (Ibid. 834) ; and who, consequently, are evil, and 
consort with infernal spirits when they enter the other 
world. 

According to the plain teaching, therefore, of this 
pamphlet, there is an efficacy, but most malign and 
terrible, in the baptism administered in other Christian 
communions than the Swedenborgian, or by other hands 
than those of professed New Churchmen. When a lit- 
tle infant is baptized by an Episcopal, Congregational, 
Methodist or Presbyterian minister, its spirit is, by that 
solemn act, inserted among the devils in hell ! — " into 
societies and congregations composed of such spirits 
only as are necessarily excluded from heaven ! ! " 

Here we have the mature and ripened fruit of that 
mistaken yet prevalent theory of the New Church, and 
of the spirit whose first blossoming began in the decla- 
rations " unanimously approved " at that " select meet- 
ing " in London consisting of thirteen persons "most 
anxious to bring forward the New Church in its ulti- 
mate and external form." And rarely have we seen 
or heard of a more striking illustration of the blinding 
and almost dementating influence of sectarianism. 

And the pamphlet containing these strange notions 
— as shocking to all right Christian feeling and com- 
mon sense, as they are contrary to the whole spirit and 
teachings of Swedenborg — coming out in the name of 
the New Church and apparently under its auspices, in- 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 147 

stead of receiving the condemnation which it merited, 
was for years advertised by the organ of the General 
Convention among its New Church works ! and its au- 
thor, not long after its publication, was admitted into 
the said Convention and elevated to the highest grade 
in its ministry ! Nor did he ever, to our knowledge, 
give up the monstrous notions expressed in the passages 
above quoted, or in any way modify his opinion on the 
subject there treated. 

We have here quoted some of the beliefs and teach- 
ings of seven " ordaining ministers " of the soi-disant 
New Church in the United States. And the sentiments 
thus openly proclaimed, coming as they do from men 
of the highest official standing in the organization, and 
devoted students of Swedenborg, are naturally accepted 
by the outside public as fairly representing the spirit 
and teachings of the illustrious seer. And do not these 
quotations furnish a striking exemplification of the 
self-same spirit in which the New Church organization 
originated? — a spirit intensely sectarian, and as far 
removed from the large, inclusive and liberal spirit of 
the New Jerusalem as darkness is from light or hell 
from heaven. Is it strange, therefore, that liberal minds 
should be offended and repelled by such a spirit ? or 
that many should have conceived a prejudice border- 
ing on disgust toward writings which are innocently be- 
lieved to justify such teaching ? 

DISHONEST HANDLING OF SWEDENBORG. 

As a further illustration of the spirit of the New 
Church organization, and of the tenacity with which 



148 THE NEW CHURCH. 

that humanly devised dogma, rebaptism — held by its 
advocates to be the visible boundary line between the 
Old and the New — is clung to, it should be observed 
that, while those in favor of the dogma have from the 
first been granted full liberty to express their views on 
the subject in the recognized organs of the denomina- 
tion, those opposed to it have never been allowed any 
such liberty. These latter have, therefore, been com- 
pelled either to remain silent, or to speak through 
unrecognized organs, or to make for themselves such 
channels of communication as they were able to ex- 
temporize. t 

And not only this, but (as often happens with per- 
sons who have a bad cause to defend) the advocates of 
the dogma have often betrayed a mournful lack of fair- 
ness in their manner of handling the subject. In a 
single article from which we have quoted (see p. 139), 
there occur not less than eight or ten misquotations or 
mistranslations of Swedenborg, — whereby the author's 
meaning is perverted, and he is made to appear to teach 
concerning the New Church what he does not. And 
every one of these misquotations was instigated ap- 
parently by the same spirit which prompted the decla- 
rations of that London meeting in 1787. 

Again : in a sermon on the " Uses and Importance 
of Baptism," by Rev. Chauncey Giles, published in the 
New Jerusalem Messenger for January 16, 1867, the 
author openly proclaims his belief in baptism as a sec- 
tarian ordinance, declaring that it inserts or engrafts 
the subject thereof into some particular sect or society 
determined by the professed beliefs of the communion 
in which it is administered ; and that it establishes " an 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 149 

organic union " with such sect n^t unlike that which 
takes place between the tender cion and the stock into 
which it is engrafted. Thus he says : 

" We are inserted by baptism into some society. 
The expression is a very strong one and denotes a very 
intimate relation. It is like the grafting of a tree, 
which consists in inserting a branch bearing one kind 
of fruit upon a stock bearing another kind. It denotes 
an organic union/' etc. 

And in another part of the same sermon, the writer 

says: 

" Those who have been baptized are recognized, both 
before and after they lay aside the material body, as 
belonging to the sect into which they have been inserted by 
baptism" 

And Mr. Giles' view of the subject is doubtless the 
generally accepted view of the soi-disant~New Church in 
this country. We have seen the same view repeatedly 
stated in the Convention's organs, and have never seen 
it criticised there, or called in question. But it is not 
Swedenborg's view — very far from it. The great seer 
uniformly speaks of baptism as " the Christian sign " — 
that is, a sign that the person receiving it (or his parents 
if it be received in infancy) acknowledges the Chris- 
tian religion. He treats it everywhere not as a sectarian , 
but as a Christian ordinance ; and as merely a sign, 
having no power whatever to engraft the subject into 
this society or that, or to establish " an organic union " 
between him and it. " Baptism,'/ he says, " is intended 
as a sign that the person baptized belongs to the church." 
(N. J. D. 202.) " Baptism is a sign that those baptized 
are of the Christian church . . . and the sign does 
13* 



150 THE NEW CHURCH. 

nothing more than mqie them known as such." " That 
it is merely a sign of introduction into the church, is 
evident from the baptizing of infants who are wholly 
destitute of reason " ; also from the baptizing of " all 
foreign proselytes who are converted to the Christian 
religion . . . from their mere confession of a desire to 
embrace Christianity." (T. C. E.) "Baptism itself 
confers upon its subjects neither faith nor salvation." 
(K J. D. 207.) " What is external [as the rite of bap- 
tism] is of no effect? but the internal thing which is signi- 
fied, which is regeneration by the truths of faith." (A. 
C. 10, 238.) " Regeneration is not effected by baptism, 
but by the life which is thereby signified." (Ibid. 2707.) 
"Baptism saves none but those who are spiritually 
washed, that is, regenerated ; for it is a sign and me- 
morial of this." (D. P. 330.) 

Does this look as if baptism engrafted the subject 
thereof into some particular society, denomination or 
seetf Does it look as if it established -" an organic 
union " with some sect in the other world, like that be- 
tween the stock and the engrafted cion? Is there the 
slightest breath of sectarianism about it, as spoken of 
and handled by the great Swede? Mr. Giles has 
wholly mistaken the meaning and force of the Latin 
word insero, as employed by Swedenborg. 

But we have referred to this sermon chiefly for the 
sake of illustrating the singular liberties which the ad- 
vocates of the rebaptism dogma and of the New Church 
as a visible institution, take with the writings of Swe- 
denborg, in their efforts to make him appear to justify 
their sectarian notions. There occurs in it the follow- 
ing quotation from Swedenborg's T. C. R. u. 678 : 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 151 

" In the spiritual world all things are most distinctly- 
arranged in the whole and in every part, or in general 
and in every particular. All of the same religion are 
arranged into societies in heaven, according to the affec- 
tions of love to God and love toward the neighbor. 
And on this distinct arrangement there, the preserva- 
tion of the whole universe depends ; and this distinction 
cannot be effected unless every one after he is born is 
known by some sign, indicating to what religious assem- 
bly he belongs." 

This is given as a continuous paragraph from Swe- 
denborg. There is no sign to indicate that a single 
word has been omitted, or the sentences at all deranged. 
But the passage as we find it in the Boston edition of 
the T. C. B., from which the quotation appears to have 
been made, reads as follows*: 

"All of the same religion are arranged into societies ; 
in heaven according to the affections of love to God and 
love toward the neighbor ; in hell, into congregations ac- 
cording to the affections opposite to those two loves, thus 
according to the lusts of evil. In the spiritual world, by 
which we mean both heaven and hell, all things are most 
distinctly arranged, in the whole and in every part, or 
in general and in every particular. On the distinct ar- 
rangement there, the preservation of the whole universe 
depends ; and this distinction cannot be effected, unless 
every one after he is born, be known by some sign in- 
dicating to what religious assembly he belongs." 

Now, we cannot for a moment suppose that the sin- 
gular dislocation and disarrangement of the sentences 
which we find in the passage as quoted in this sermon, 
coupled also with the equally singular omission of the 
clauses we have given in italics, were mere accidents — 
casual oversights — unintentional mistakes — the result 



152 TTTE NEW CHURCH. 

of sheer carelessness. It would, indeed, be a relief if 
we could believe this ; but it is impossible. The fraud- 
ulent handling of Sweclenborg in this instance, was 
evidently a deliberate act ; and the perversion of his 
meaning through such handling must have been equally 
deliberate, and equally obvious to the writer. Mr. Giles 
had a theory to maintain respecting baptism and the 
New Church. It was substantially the same as that 
endorsed by the General Convention in 1839, when it 
adopted the recommendation in the Report of its " Or- 
daining Ministers." And as this theory happened to 
differ decidedly from Swedenborg's, it could derive ap- 
parent support from his teachings only by misquotation 
or dishonest handling. It was the sect spirit — so often 
proving itself stronger than the love of truth and jus- 
tice — that prompted this bold and unjustifiable muti- 
lation. Every one knows that sectarianism is not and 
never was in close alliance with the most delicate con- 
science or the keenest perceptions of the good and true. 
Its influence is always malign — always blinding. It 
tends to obscure the moral perceptions and benumb the 
moral sensibilities. It has been so always. 

Then look at the lines we have italicised, and which 
Mr. Giles omitted to quote in his sermon, and see how 
fatal they are to the theory in regard to baptism which 
he had adopted and was endeavoring to impress on 
other minds ! The theory is, that an individual is in- 
serted by baptism into some angelic society (that is, if 
the baptism be administered by a duly authorized New 
Church minister) ; and that this insertion " is like the 
; grafting of a tree, which consists in inserting a branch 
bearing one kind of fruit upon a stock bearing another 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 153 

kind." If this be so — and if it effects such " an organic 
union " as Mr. Giles speaks of, then what is the conclu- 
sion which the words he was so careful to omit would 
force upon us ? Why, that some are inserted by baptism 
(administered by other than Swedenborgian hands, of 
course) into societies or congregations in hell ; and that, 
in the case of such, " an organic union " is thereby es- 
tablished with infernal societies ! — the very conclusion 
reached and openly proclaimed by one of the writers 
above quoted (p. 145). This follows logically from the 
theory. But the author of this sermon, we presume, 
could hardly endure the thought of a little infant (for 
it is of infants as well as of adults that Swedenborg is 
speaking in the paragraph quoted) being in any case 
inserted into and organically united with some society 
in the hells through the solemn rite of baptism. (Or if 
he believed this, he did not think it expedient at that 
time to preach it.) For, according to Swedenborg in 
the passage above quoted, the very same agency that 
arranges or inserts some into angelic societies, arranges 
or inserts others into infernal congregations. The theory 
of the sermon is, that the external rite of baptism is 
this agency, — an agency for good or for evil, binding 
the subject thereof to angelic or infernal societies, ac- 
cording to the hands by which, or the communion in 
which, it happens to be administered. Hence the felt 
necessity of either abandoning the theory, or of mu- 
tilating Swedenborg to make his teaching appear to 
tally with it. And unfortunately the latter course w T as 
chosen. 

The expression u religious assembly " has, doubtless, 
misled many persons. They take it to mean the same 



154 TEE NEW CHURCH. 

as religious sect or denomination. But it does not. The 
Latin of Swedenborg reads : ad cujus religionis coetus 
pertineat — " to which religious assemblage he belongs " ; 
coetus meaning, not a sect or denomination of Chris- 
tians, each of which must have its own distinctive bap- 
tism, but the assemblage or aggregate of all who are of 
one and the same religion — whether Christians, Jews, 
Mohammedans, or Pagans. This is the meaning of the 
original Latin, confirmed both by what precedes and 
what immediately follows. 

"The Lord's presence in man," says Swedenborg, 
" is in justice and equity, and moreover in honesty and 
decorum." These principles are the planes in him 
"whereon conscience is founded by the Lord." And 
he further says that honesty is the complex of all 
moral virtues." (A. C. 2915.) In view of this heav- 
enly teaching, how can w T e help regarding Mr. Giles' 
offense in the instance here referred to, as a very grave 
one, and as indicating a lamentable deficiency in " the 
moral virtues." To form a just estimate of its magni- 
tude, we must bear in mind that Mr. G. accepts Swe- 
denborg (or professes to) as a divinely commissioned 
teacher ; that he regards him as a man sent of God, 
and an unquestionable authority in spiritual things ; 
that his own congregation before whom that sermon 
was first preached, and the 3000 or more readers of the 
Messenger in which it was subsequently printed, doubt- 
less accepted and were expected to accept the misquoted 
and falsified paragraph as the veritable teaching of 
Swedenborg ; and that thus thousands of innocent and 
confiding people were purposely deceived, and led to 
accept this falsified statement for the truth. Now if a 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 155 

minister in Mr. Giles' high and responsible position, 
may thus deliberately falsify Swedenborg in one in- 
stance, why not in fifty ? And if such offenses are to 
be winked at, or treated as of little or no consequence, 
how long will it be before every truth taught by the 
illustrious seer, may be falsified at the dictate of the 
perverting and blinding spirit of sect. 

Yet Mr. Giles has never received from the body with 
which he is connected, the slightest rebuke for this grave 
offense, although the nature of it has been twice pointed 
out in a very public manner, and an opportunity offered 
for explanation, if there was any to be given. The 
offense is virtually confessed by the continued silence 
of Mr. G. and his friends ; yet it is treated as of no 
consequence whatever — which, to those who regard 
righteousness of life as the essential thing, is like treat- 
ing theft, perjury, arson or slander as of no conse- 
quence. So far from receiving the stern rebuke which 
such an offense deserves, the offender has since been 
honored by being twice elected to the presidency of the 
General Convention. We find the satisfactory expla- 
nation of this (and can we find it elsewhere ?) in the 
fact that Mr. Giles is a stanch advocate of the Con- 
vention and its theory of the New Church, and one of 
the best representatives of its whole spirit and polity ; 
and in this, as in some other ecclesiastical bodies, the 
spirit of sect is so much stronger than the spirit of recti- 
tude, truth and justice, that gross violations of the 
divine precepts by one who steadfastly adheres to the 
sect, utters its shibboleths and justifies it in all its 
doings, are readily overlooked or forgotten. It is the 
same here as in political organizations. Sins against 



156 THE NEW CHURCH. 

God — against truth, justice and right — are of small 
consequence ; but sins against the party, or fair criti- 
cisms of its doings and sayings, are not so easily for- 
given. Party spirit and the sect spirit are one and the 
same ; and both of them are identical with the love of 
self or the lust of dominion. And how this spirit warps 
and blinds the understanding, how it renders even the 
simplest truths obscure, and sometimes leads to their 
utter denial and rejection, is often and most impres- 
sively declared by Swedenborg. (See A. C. 7490.) 

HINDRANCES THAT OUGHT TO BE REMOVED. 

Our illustrations of the tendency and influence of 
the popular theory concerning the New Church, have 
thus far been drawn from official records, and the public 
teachings of ministers of the highest degree. How re- 
pugnant to every right Christian feeling and how offen- 
sive to all true and generous souls are the views therein 
expressed, how prejudicial to the interests of truth and 
how obstructing to the progress and reception of the 
new theology, especially among liberal minds, the proc- 
lamation of such views must be, it needs no argument 
to prove. Yet these views have been steadily upheld 
by the recognized New Church organs in England 
and America for nearly a century. These organs have 
offered no argument against them, have uttered no 
manly protest, have expressed no emphatic dissent. 
Nay, in this country they have not permitted them to 
be criticised, nor their disagreement with Swedenborg's 
teachings, as well as with the whole spirit of the Chris- 
tian religion, to be exhibited in their columns. And 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 157 

the few who have seen their falsity, and the withering 
sectarianism which underlies them, and the hindrance 
they offer to the spread of heavenly truth, and- the 
terrible injustice which their promulgation has done 
and continues to do to a great and revered author, and 
who have felt constrained, therefore, to unveil their true 
character from time to time and utter against them 
their indignant protest, have uniformly been compelled 
to seek for their utterances some outside channels of 
communication — or, oftener still, to create channels 
of their own. The recognized organs of the body have 
been persistently closed against them. And not only 
this, but such dissenters have often been treated with 
great harshness, incivility and injustice. Friendly inter- 
course with them has been broken off; fellowship has 
been withdrawn ; reproach has been heaped upon them ; 
they have been spoken of and treated as mischief- 
makers, schismatics, disturbers of the peace of Ziou, 
enemies of the New Jerusalem; and in some instances 
their names have been "cast out as evil." Whether 
this has or has not been " for the Son of Man's sake " 
— that is, for the sake of Him who is the Truth itself, 
and for the best interests of his church on earth, the 
reader is left to decide for himself. 

THE WAIL OF A BURDENED SPIRIT. 

Other illustrations might be added, revealing the 
kind of spirit which the popular mistake in regard to 
the New Church has developed and fostered both in 
England and the United States. But such illustrations 
are not pleasant, and we forbear. It is enough to know 
14 



158 THE NEW CHURCH. 

that these things have brought sickness and sorrow and 
mourning to the hearts of intelligent readers and enthu- 
siastic admirers of Swedenborg, whose eyes have been 
opened to discern something of the beauty, extent, gran- 
deur and catholicity of the New Jerusalem : and who 
have been pained beyond measure by what has seemed 
to them the sad misrepresentation, by its professed 
friends, of one of the grandest systems of religious truth 
ever vouchsafed unto mortals. 

Some idea of the deep distress caused by the spirit, 
teachings and doings of the new organization (all of 
which may be traced to the popular error in regard to 
the nature and whereabout of the New Church), may 
be formed from the following extracts copied from arti- 
cles by Professor George Bush — a man of great intel- 
ligence and learning as well as of rare excellence, ele- 
vation and breadth of character, and for many years 
before his death a devoted student of the works of Swe- 
denborg, and an affectionate receiver and faithful ex- 
pounder of his teachings. Here are a few of the mourn- 
ful strains poured forth from the burdened heart of 
this good man from time to time, in view of the spirit, 
policy and pretensions of the body claiming to be the 
organized " New Jerusalem in the United States of 
America." 

" Suppose, for a moment, that the predominant aspect 
in which this body [the General Convention] should 
stand before you were, . . . that it was fraught with 
evils of the most pernicious character to the true spir- 
itual interests of the Church ; that it was in itself a 
policy which 'makes war' with all that is ' lovely and 
of good report/ all that is charitable, kindly, heavenly, 
in the life of the Church — should you not, in that 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 159 

case, speak in tones of uncompromising antagonism 
towards a system fraught with such manifold mischiefs ? 
" Now, I have only to ask whether the Convention has 
not shown itself to be all this in its spirit and acting? 
Is it not beyond question, the grand let and hindrance 
to the prosperity of the Church ? Does it not hang as 
a dead weight on the wheels of its progress ? And can 
you perceive any symptoms of emendation ? Is it not 
fixed, seated, settled, and confirmed in its course of evil 
influence ? Why, then, should it not be warred against ? 
How can we be at peace with an evil, without being 
at war with good ? " — {New Church Repository, March, 
1857, p. 425.) 

" We can only appeal to the fact of the sad estrange- 
ments of the Church, and reiterate our declaration that 
we see no -other cause for them than the outrage done 
to our most sacred convictions, by insisting upon our 
compliance with a Church Polity, which in our eyes is 
fraught with the most baleful issues to the Lord's king- 
dom. . . . We have yet to see the evidence that the spirit 
by which the Convention is governed, is a spirit that 
cherishes one particle of solicitude whether harmony 
or discord prevails in the Church, so that its own chosen 
policy be carried out to the full extent of its aims. The 
very genius of such a body is intensely sectarian ; and 
the genius of sect is always the genius of self-compla- 
cency, self-exaltation, and of malign regard toward 
dissenters. It will tolerate the grossest errors of doc- 
trine, the most glaring delinquencies of life, provided 
only, that a stiff adhesion be manifested to the rules of 
order — to the various ecclesiastical arrangements — 
which the soi-disant ' Church ' has seen fit to adopt. 
Alas ! how dreary, how cold, how wintry, the reign of 
a heartless ecclesiasticism, having Bigotry and Intoler- 
ance for its prime ministers." — {Ibid. December, 1856, 
p. 356.) 

" It seems to be a part of the inscrutable counsels 
of the Divine Providence, that the New Church shall 



160 THE NEW CHURCH. 

' bear the yoke in its youth ' — the yoke of an oppres- 
sive spiritual despotism, which is none the less to be 
detested, because, from its voluntary character, its sub- 
jects are but little aware of its galling effects. ... It i^ 
only toward those who call its esse and existere in ques- 
tion, that it shows itself in its true colors. Others feel 
only its velvet glove, these its iron hand. 

" But we would have done with the mournful theme. 
Our souls are sick with the survey of the desolations 
wrought by the calamitous system. It is scarcely 
within the compass of language to express our deep 
conviction of the contrariety existing between the spirit 
of the so-called General Convention, and the true spirit 
of the New Jerusalem. The one is, in our view, utterly 
antagonistic to the other, so that, whichever prevails, 
the other must die. They cannot possibly live to- 
gether. . . . We see the Lord's Church bleeding at every 
pore, and we see the parricidal hands that have in- 
flicted the blows. The very stones would rebuke our 
silence were we to hold our peace." — (Ibid. p. 348.) 

" We hold it to be no breach of charity for any mem- 
ber of the New Church to sit in judgment on the Gen- 
eral Convention, and to call its doings in question so 
far as they may strike him as at variance with the true 
spirit, ends, and uses of the Lord's kingdom. . . . The 
principles on which it [the Convention] rests, are, in 
our view, fraught with mischief ; and of all events which 
could occur to form a new and happy era in the his- 
tory of the Church in our country, the most signal 
would be the immediate dissolution and disbanding of 
a body, which is exerting so disastrous an influence on 
the charity which ought to rule in the Lord's kingdom 
on the earth." — (Ibid. Jane, 1855, p. 282.) 

" We arraign it, — we rebuke it, — we condemn it in 
the name of all the impulses of Christians and all the 
graces of angels. No matter with what holy or high- 
sounding titles such a body may deck itself, they are 
all usurpation, and of no account in the Lord's sight 



TENDENCY OF THE POPULAR VIEW. 161 

There is — there can be — no possible offense committed 
by a body of men against the very life of the Church, 
more enormous than this mad determination [of the 
Convention] to persist in a policy which shall alienate 
those who would fain be most tenderly united with their 
brethren, and whose very scruples on this head evince 
the operation of principles that would render them in- 
valuable associates in all legitimate church relations. 
Now it is the undervaluing, the ignoring, the non-per- 
ception of the ineffable evils of such a course, — the 
apparent utter insensibility to the fearful wrong done 
thereby to the spirit of charity, — that rends our hearts 
to the core." — (Ibid.. Dec, 1856, pp. 354-5.) 

" For ourselves, so far as we recognize the body called 
the General Convention as . representing the Church of 
the New Jerusalem, we disown it, we discard it, we turn 
away with loathing from it ; we can have no more fel- 
lowship with it than with the Babylon of the Apoca- 
lypse, so preeminently ultimated in the hierarchy of 
Rome. They are both built upon the same falsities, 
both breathe the same spirit, and both are doomed, we 
believe, to the same perdition." — (Ibid. Dec, 1856, 
pp. 358-9.) 

.14* L 



IV. 

WHERE AND WHAT IS THE NEW CHURCH? 

THIS is not a merely speculative or theoretical ques- 
tion, but one of high practical moment. It is a 
question lying back of nearly every other, about which 
there has been any difference of opinion among Sweden- 
borgians. It is one intimately connected with the whole 
" New Church " ecclesiasticism, and whose decision, this 
way or that, must seriously affect our attitude and bear- 
ing toward other Christians ; and so hinder or promote 
our own spiritual growth, and the progress of truth 
through our instru mentality. Let us see, then, how 
the divinely commissioned herald of this church has 
himself answered the question we have here pro- 
pounded. 

OUR SPIRITUAL MOTHER, 

When the Lord is spoken of in Scripture with refer- 
ence to his intimate union with the souls of men — a 
union produced and maintained by the indwelling and 
reciprocation of his love in human hearts, and repre- 
sented, therefore, on the natural plane, by wedded pairs, 
He is called Husband and Bridegroom ; and the Church 
(including under this term all in both worlds whose 
hearts have become wedded to Him by love and obedi- 
ence) is called his Wife and Bride. But when He is 
spoken of with reference to his paternal care for the 

162 



WTIEEE AND WHAT IS IT? 163 

children of men, and to the quickening and heaven- 
begetting power of his love in human hearts, He is 
called the Father — our Heavenly Father; and the 
Church, his Wife (using the word in the large and 
comprehensive sense), by virtue of her sweet, benignant 
and maternal influence, is called a Mother. Hence the 
apostle speaks of a " Jerusalem which is above," and 
"which," he says, "is the mother of us all" ; for the 
Churqh in its largest sense, is the spiritual mother 
of all who are born of God — all regenerate and re- 
generating souls. 

Now we are commanded by the fourth precept of the 
Decalogue to honor our father and mother. And Swe- 
denborg has explained the meaning of this precept in 
its natural, spiritual and celestial senses. He has told 
us what is to be understood by mother, and what by 
honoring her, in each of these senses. In the natural 
sense, natural parents are meant by father and mother ; 
and the precept to honor them, requires, among other 
things, that children should be " grateful for benefits 
received from them, remembering with all thankfulness 
that they have been fed and clothed by them," etc. 
In the spiritual sense, he says : " by honoring father 
and mother, is meant to revere and love God and the 
church." He does not tell us what church he here re- 
fers to, whether the visible or invisible, the nominal or 
the real. But it is plain that he refers to a different 
kind of church from the one he speaks of when he 
comes to unfold for us the celestial sense of this precept. 
It is plain that he does not refer to " the Lord's church 
dispersed throughout the whole world," w T hich he calls 
" the communion of saints," and which he assures us is 



164 THE NE W CHURCH. 

the New Jerusalem. Indeed he tells us (n. 307, T. Q 
R.) that he means by this latter, not the same church 
that he does where he gives us the spiritual sense of 
mother ; for he says, " this church, and not the former, 
is," etc. 

Thus mother in the spiritual sense, denotes the church ; 
and in the celestial sense it denotes the church also. 
Yet these churches are not identically the same. There 
is a distinction to be observed between them. What is 
that distinction ? It is indicated with sufficient clear- 
ness by Swedenborg. For he has told us what church 
he means when he gives us the celestial sense of mother. 
He means the invisible or real church — "the com- 
munion of saints," or all the Lord's people, by what- 
ever name they are called, " dispersed throughout the 
whole world." 

If, then, there is good ground for distinguishing the 
church into visible and invisible, or nominal and real, it 
is clear enough what church Swedenborg must refer to 
in giving us the spiritual sense of mother. For he 
says : " The reason why, in a spiritual sense, mother 
means the church, is, because as a natural mother 
nourishes her children with natural food, so the church 
nourishes her children with spiritual food." — (Ibid. 306.) 
Now, it is only when in an organized form — in some 
such form as makes it a. practical, working, visible insti- 
tution — that the church can provide spiritual food for 
her children. It is only in some such visible form, that 
she can print and circulate the Bible, publish books, 
tracts and newspapers, support Sunday-schools, main- 
tain public worship, or, in short, do any of those things 
which correspond to what a natural mother does for her 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 185 

children. The very circumstance, therefore, which 
Swedenborg alleges as the reason why mother means 
the church, is itself proof that it is the visible or 
nominal church to which he refers — or the church 
viewed as an institution. 

Now, the aggregate Christian organizations upon 
earth, or the sum total of Christian believers organized 
for purposes of worship and edification in spiritual 
things, constitute the entire visible Christian church, or 
our spiritual mother in the widest sense. And if it be 
asked what maternal acts or duties this church has per- 
formed, the answer is at hand — yes, written in endur- 
ing characters upon our whole Christian civilization. 
She has translated and preserved the written Word. 
She has printed and circulated copies thereof by the 
million, in nearly every language under heaven. She 
has done much, by her industry and research, to eluci- 
date the letter of the Word. She has implanted in 
myriads of human hearts a reverence for its simple pre- 
cepts. She has taught many of its essential truths in 
a form accommodated to the earlier stages of regenera- 
tion. She has kept alive the belief in Christ as the Son 
of the living God and the all-sufficient Redeemer and 
Saviour. And she has not only done, but is still doing, 
these things — things which correspond to those that a 
kind, faithful and provident mother does for her chil- 
dren. Are not these deeds good and useful ? Are they 
not such as fairly entitle the church that has performed 
and is still performing them, to our reverence, love and 
honor? 

Then, who is it to whom the greater proportion of 
Swedenborgians at this time are indebted for the remains 



166 THE NEW CHURCH. 

that have been implanted in them, and the religious 
culture they have received? Is it not those various 
denominations of the Christian Church — of the Old 
church, as they are often, though erroneously, called — 
in which they have been born and nurtured ? Yes : 
nearly every professed New-Churchman of to-day is in- 
debted to some branch or sect of what he calls the Old 
Church, for his earliest religious lessons and religious 
impressions. Some one of the various sects has taught 
him to read and reverence the AVord of God ; to learn 
and obey the divine commandments ; to remember and 
keep holy the Sabbath day ; to respect the forms and 
ordinances of religion ; to repent of his sins, and invoke 
God's forgiveness. And has not this instruction been 
good and useful to him, spite of the errors that may 
have mingled with it? Where and what would he 
have been without it ? It is the foundation of what- 
ever of Christ's kingdom there is, or is to be, within 
him. 

And now the question is, how should such Christian 
sect or church be regarded by one who has been thus 
blessed through her instrumentality ? Has she not per- 
formed for him the duties and offices of a mother? 
And, if so, is she not entitled to his filial gratitude, 
love and homage ? Can he withhold his gratitude, or 
fail to remember with thankfulness her deeds of mater- 
nal kindness, without a manifest violation of the fourth 
commandment ? 

Some, I am aware, will say that the Christian organ- 
izations to which I refer, are not Christian ; that they 
are destitute of the spirit and life of Christ ; that they 
are in league with Satan, and can, therefore, have no 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 167 

maternal claims upon any of God's children. But I 
propose to show, and upon the clear testimony of Swe- 
den borg, that, so far from this, the various Christian 
organizations or churches are not forsaken of God, and 
not destitute of His spirit and life ; but, on the contrary, 
that they constitute or include a part, and a very large 
and important part, too, of the New Church on earth. 

So much for the spiritual sense of the fourth com- 
mandment and the obligation it imposes. Now for the 
supreme or celestial sense of the precept — and that 
will show whether any others than Swedenborgians be- 
long to the New Jerusalem. 

"In the celestial sense," says Swedenborg, "by 
father is meant our Lord Jesus Christ, and by mother 
the communion of saints, in other words, His church 
dispersed throughout the whole world." — (T. C. K., 
307.) Now, who are meant by "the communion of 
saints " ? Members of the organized or nominal New 
Church alone? Swedenborgians only? The idea is 
preposterous. Evidently Swedenborg meant, by this 
expression, to include all good people — the children 
of God everywhere — all who are in conjunction with 
Him ; and this, too, wholly irrespective of creed, pro- 
fession, or outward church relations. 

And if Swedenborgians do not constitute the sum 
total of God's people, then, clearly, some others are in- 
cluded in " His church dispersed throughout the whole 
world." But should a doubt linger in the mind of any 
one as to what is meant by " the communion of saints," 
he may find Swedenborg's own explanation of the ex- 
pression in Arcana Coelestia, n. 7396. He is there speak- 
ing of the societies that constitute the Lord's true 



168 THE NEW CHURCH. 

church ; and he says they are " scattered through the 
whole world, and consist of those who are in love to 
the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor. . . . These 
societies are not only within the church [i. e., the visible 
or organized church] but also out of it ; and, taken to- 
gether, are called the Lord's church scattered and col- 
lected from the good in the whole world, which is also 
called a communion. This communion, or this church, 
is the Lord's kingdom in the earth, conjoined to His 
kingdom in the heavens and thus conjoined to the Lord 
himself." This decides, beyond controversy, what the 
author means by " the communion of saints " in T. C. 
R., 307. He means the Lord's kingdom on earth, or 
all the good people in the world — as w r ell those with- 
out as those within the pale of the visible church — who 
are conjoined to Him by love. 

Observe, now — for the fact is one worthy of special 
attention in this connection — that this communion of 
saints, this invisible but real church, consisting ex- 
clusively of the Lord's own sheep " dispersed through- 
out the whole world," is " the New Jerusalem " referred 
to in the Apocalypse — is "the Bride, the Lamb's 
wife." This is declared by Swedenborg himself in 
language too plain to be misunderstood. For, after 
giving us the celestial sense of mother, as above, he 
proceeds with his reasons, citing passages from the 
Word, according to his usual custom, whereby the thing 
alleged is made " evident." 

" That the church of the Lord is meant by mother 
in this sense is evident from these passages : " — Now 
note the passages that he immediately proceeds to quote 
as proof-texts — each of them from the Apocalypse, and 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 169 

each referring to the New Jerusalem, the Lamb's wife : 

— "I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, prepared 
as a bride adorned for her husband. " — (Rev. xxi. 2.) 
" The angel said to John, Come hither, I will show thee 
the bride, the Lamb's wife; and he showed me that 
great city, the holy Jerusalem." — (Ibid. xxi. 9, 10) 
" The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath 
made herself ready." — (xix. 7.) Then, after speaking 
of " a New Church which is at this day establishing by 
the Lord," and referring to A. R., in 880, 881, he adds 

— as if to place his meaning beyond dispute — " this 
church, and not the former, is the wife and mother in 
this sense." In what sense ? Why, in the sense he had 
just explained — in the sense that shows the New Jeru- 
salem to be the Lord's true but invisible church, em- 
bracing all " throughout the whole world " who are 
conjoined to Him by love, no matter what their name 
or creed. 

The mother, in this broad sense, denotes the New 
Church which is signified by the New Jerusalem of the 
Apocalypse. And can any one doubt that there are in 
this church multitudes who are not of the nominal New 
Jerusalem — not Swedenborgians ? I think not. Nor 
do I know of a single passage in the writings of Swe- 
denborg, which goes to prove that the real New Jeru- 
salem of the Apocalypse is any other than God's people 
of every name "scattered throughout the world," or 
that church which is signified by mother in the highest 
or celestial sense. 

Turn, now, to the Apocalypse — to that chapter (xxi.) 
which describes the New Jerusalem, and where, if any- 
where, we should expect an explicit answer to our ques- 
15 



170 THE NEW OHURCH. 

tion. And, agreeable to our expectation, we are here 
taught, who shall and who shall not enter into it — or 
who do and who do not belong to the New Church. 

NAMES "IN THE LAMB'S BOOK OF LIFE." 

The former are " they who are written in the Lamb's 
book of life;" which words as explained by Swedenborg, 
mean, " they who believe in the Lord, and live accord- 
ing to his commandments in the Word." — (A. R. 925.) 
These constitute the New Church specifically, that is, 
the New Church in Christendom. We are also told 
that "all who are in the good of life, and believe in 
the Lord " are meant by those who walk in the light of 
the New Jerusalem ; that they are such as " see divine 
truths from interior illumination, and live according to 
them." — (Ibid. 920.) We are further told " that all 
the particulars of the doctrine of the New Jerusalem 
relate to love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor ; " 
and that " love to the Lord consists in trusting in Him 
and doing his commandments ; and to do his command- 
ments constitutes love toward the neighbor." — (Ibid. 
903.) 

And in the True Christian Religion, where " the 
theology of the New Church " is unfolded, and where, 
therefore, whenever " the church " is mentioned without 
any qualifying epithet, we have a right to infer that the 
author means the church of the New Jerusalem, it is 
said : " The fellowship or communion called the church, 
consists of all such persons as have the church abiding 
in them, and it gains admission into every one when he 
is regenerating ; and every one becomes regenerate in 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 171 

proportion as he abstains from the evils of sin, and 
shuns them as he would troops of infernal spirits." — 
(510.) 

Now, is it to be believed that Swedenborgians are the 
only people in Christendom who " believe in the Lord 
and live according to his commandments in the Word " ? 
That they alone " see divine truths from interior illumi- 
nation, and live according to them " ? That they alone 
" trust in the Lord and do His commandments " ? 
That they alone are in a " regenerating " state ? That 
they alone " abstain from evils, and shun them as sins"? 
The idea is too preposterous, for any sane mind seriously 
to entertain. 

But if there are any beside Swedenborgians, who 
" trust in the Lord, and do His commandments," then 
it is clear that there are those outside of our communion 
who belong to the New Jerusalem. Then Jhe real New 
Church is broader and more inclusive than the small 
sect which bears the name. And if there be any in our 
communion who do not " shun evils as sins " (see A. R., 
952), or do not " trust in the Lord and do His command- 
ments," it is equally clear that they constitute no part 
of the genuine New Church. They belong to the pro- 
fessed or nominal but not to the real New Jerusalem. 

And so we find that Swedenborg, in explaining that 
chapter of the Apocalypse — the only chapter in the 
whole Bible which describes the New Jerusalem and 
tells us what class of people belong to it — the chapter 
which, before all others, we should consult to learn the 
nature and whereabout of the New Church — is entirely 
consistent with what he teaches in T. C. R., n. 307, as 
above quoted. In the one instance, he tells us that the 



172 THE NEW CHURCH. 

New Church consists of all those " who believe in the 
Lord and live according to His commandments/' — no 
matter what creed they profess, or by what name they 
are known, or to what sect they belong — and of no 
others. In the other, he assures us that this church 
includes all God's children " dispersed throughout the 
whole world," and constituting what he calls " the com- 
munion of saints." Nor is there, to the best of our 
knowledge a solitary passage in all his writings, in 
which he teaches a different doctrine on this subject, or 
which justifies the belief that the body of disciples com- 
monly called the New Church, is really the Apocalyptic 
New Jerusalem. 



THE KINGDOM OF THE LORD. 

In addition to what has been thus far shown, take 
what Swedenbor^ says of the ascending degrees of the 
relationship of neighbor. These, according to his enu- 
meration, are an individual, a society, our country, the 
church, the kingdom of the Lord, and the Lord him- 
self. " These are the degrees of the relationship of 
neighbor ; and according to these, love ascends in all 
who are influenced by the love of the neighbor." — (N. 
J. D., 96.) Each of these is neighbor, we are told, but 
one in a higher degree than the other — and therefore 
entitled to our love in a corresponding degree. " These 
degrees are degrees of successive order, in which what 
is prior or superior is to be preferred to what is posterior 
or inferior." — (lb.) Therefore " the kingdom of the 
Lord," according to the order in which it stands in the 
above enumeration, is more our neighbor than "the 



* 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 173 

church," and consequently is to be loved in a superior 
degree. 

But what is the precise distinction between the church 
and the kingdom of the Lord ? What is the distinction 
clearly intended by Swedenborg ? It is amusing to see 
how /this question has sometimes been answered by those 
who are unwilling to admit the existence of any invisible 
and real church distinct from the visible and nominal. 
And so long as this distinction is ignored, it is impos- 
sible to give any rational or consistent answer to this 
question — any answer, I mean, that shall make Swe- 
denborg consistent with himself. 

The distinction which he makes, and meant that his 
readers should make, between the church and the king- 
dom of the Lord, is clearly the same that he makes be- 
tween the spiritual and the celestial sense of Mother, 
and the same that the great majority of Christians and 
even the illustrious seer himself make between the visi- 
ble and the invisible, or the nominal and the real 
church. By " the church," in the connection referred 
to, he evidently means the nominal church, or the 
church as a visible institution. This is clear from some 
of the language he employs ; such as, " He, therefore, 
who from love provides for the church, loves," etc. — 
(N. J. D., 94.) Such language would not be applicable 
to any other than the visible church. He who fur- 
nishes means for supporting the church as an organized 
institution — for supporting its ministry, its public 
worship, its missionary and other enterprises — may be 
said to provide for the church. A man " provides " for 
his family, for his country, for an army, — for some- 
thing that has a visible and tangible existence. So, 
15* 



174 THE NEW CHURCH. 

then, it must be the church as a visible institution, that 
Swedenborg speaks of a man's " providing " for. 

And who are meant by the kingdom of the Lord which, 
we are told, " is the neighbor in a still higher degree " 
than the church ? We have Swedenborg's own answer. 
" His kingdom consists of all who are influenced by good" 
no matter what their name or creed. " Thus the king- 
dom of the Lord is good, with all its quality, in the ag- 
gregate ; and when this is loved, the individuals who 
are in good are loved." — (N. J. D., 95.) It is the 
Lord's invisible but real church — the very same that the 
author elsewhere (T. C. R., 307) means by " the com- 
munion of saints " or " the church scattered throughout 
the whole world." There can be no doubt on this point, 
since the identity of this true but invisible church with 
the kingdom of the Lord, is expressly declared in the 
Arcana, 7396, — where it is said: "This communion, 
or this church, is the Lord's kingdom in the earthy con- 
joined to his kingdom in the heavens." 

And in the True Christian Religion this identity is 
affirmed in language still more explicit : " The Lord's 
kingdom [on earth] includes the church dispersed 
throughout the whole earth, called the communion of 
saints." — (416.) And this again is in harmony with 
another passage, which says : " By father and mother, 
in the supreme sense, are understood the Lord and his 
Kingdom ; by father is meant the Lord, and by mother, 
his kingdom" — (Ap. Ex., 375.) 

All the children of God, then — all the good and 
charitable in the various churches and out of them — 
constitute " the kingdom of the Lord." And this king- 
dom, which is the real Apocalyptic New Jerusalem, we 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 175 

are told, is our neighbor in a higher degree than the 
church visible (N. J. Z>., 95) ; and therefore it " is to 
be preferred " — that is, to be loved with a more ardent 
affection, and served with a deeper devotion and greater 
singleness of purpose. — ■ (lb. 96.) 

The testimony of Swedenborg, therefore, is clear and 
abundant in support of the position, that the New Je- 
rusalem is the real church, including within its ample 
pale not merely Swedenborgians or nominal New- 
Churchmen, but all who live righteous lives and are, 
therefore, in conjunction with the Lord and in fellow- 
ship with the angels, be their professions, creeds or ex- 
ternal church relations what they may. 

« 

CHRISTIANS WHO ARE IN GREAT FALSITIES. 

But I shall be pointed to the great and pernicious 
falsities still held and taught by the Christian denomi- 
nations around us — such as the tripersonality of God, 
the vicarious atonement, justification by faith alone, 
and other kindred errors, whereby the first Christian 
church was corrupted, and finally brought to its end. 
And I shall be asked, Do these falsities belong to the 
New Jerusalem ? Has it not been declared by the pen 
of inspiration that nothing " which worketh abomina- 
tion or maketh a lie " shall by any means enter into it ? 
How, then, can any who are in these or kindred falsi- 
ties, be in the New Church ? Or, how can any be in 
this Church, who are not in the belief and acknowledg- 
ment of its heavenly doctrines ? 

Strange that such questions should ever arise in the 
minds of those who have read Swedenborg and believe 



176 THE NEW CHURCH. 

in Kis divine illumination. Yet they do arise, and 
are often propounded with a confidence which betrays 
a conviction that it is difficult if not impossible to 
answer them. I would, therefore, respectfully refer all 
who ask such questions, to the answers which this illu- 
mined author himself has given. For he tells us in 
many places that Christians may be professedly or nom- 
inally in many and great errors, and yet live the life 
of charity ; and where this is the case, that they are not 
really in the falsities they profess ; or their falsities are 
accepted of the Lord as truths, for they are not falsities 
of evil, which are the only real falsities of hell. Thus 
he says : 

" All doctrinals whatsoever, if so be they are derived 
from the Word, are accepted of the Lord, provided that 
the person who is principled therein be in the life of 
charity." — (A. C, 3452.) " When the end is to do 
good, they [i. e. their falsities] are regarded by the Lord 
and in heaven, not as falsities, but as bearing a resem- 
blance to the truth ; and according to the quality of 
innocence, they are accepted as truths." — (lb. 7887.) 
" Falsities which are derived from evil, are the real fal- 
sities which are from hell." — (A. K, 867.) " The false 
not from evil, but from ignorance of the truth, is not 
the false " (A. G, 6784), and is not so regarded by the 
Lord or the angels. " The falsities which are not from 
evil, in the external form indeed are falsities, but not 
in the internal ; for there are falsities with those who 
are in the good of life, but interiorly in those falsities 
there is good, which causes the evil of the false to be 
removed ; hence that false before the angels does not 
appear as the false, but as a species of truth." — (lb. 
10,648.) 

Now, can there be any doubt that there is, at this 
day, a large multitude belonging to the churches in 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 177 

which great falsities are professed and taught, whose 
hearts are nevertheless so imbued with the spirit of 
Christ, that the falsities which they profess are not re- 
garded by the Lord or the angels as falsities? All 
such, then, are really and at heart in the truth. They, 
therefore, belong to the New Jerusalem, whatever be 
their creed or outward church fellowship. Is it said 
that this is mere inference? True; but is it not a 
legitimate and necessary inference? Is it not a conclu- 
sion that accords with the general tenor and scope of 
this author's teachings ? 

But there is no need of resting upon mere inference. 
We have Swedenborg's explicit declaration that there 
are people in Christendom, who, although professing 
various false doctrines, yet belong to the church of the 
New Jerusalem because of the good of life in which 
they are principled. 

THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. 

Take his explanation of " the seven churches which 
are in Asia." These churches, he tells us, signify " the 
New Church upon earth, which is the New Jerusalem 
descending from the Lord out of the New Heaven. . . . 
which in itself is one, but various according to recep- 
tion." And after comparing the varieties in this church 
" to the various jewels in the crown of a king," and " to 
the various members and organs in a perfect body," he 
adds, as if for the express purpose of teaching the com- 
prehensive and universal character of the New Jerusa- 
lem, and that its variety adds to its perfection : " The 
perfection of every form consists in various things being 



178 THE NEW CHURCH. 

suitably disposed in their order : hence it is, that the 
universal New Church is described, as to its various 
particulars, by the seven churches, in what follows." — 
{A. R., 66.) 

Now, note the different classes of persons that con- 
stitute this " universal New Church." Note, especially, 
their various doctrines, and the false doctrines of various 
kinds, which are professed by a large proportion of them. 
Among them, are " those who primarily respect truths 
of doctrine and not good of life " ; " those who are in 
good as to life, but in falsities as to doctrine ;" " those 
who place the all of the church in good works, and not 
anything in truths of doctrine " ; " those who are in 
faith separate from charity," yet " know a few things 
concerning charity " — persons who " have not them- 
selves falsified truths, but have given credit to those 
who have done so, because their falsities appeared like 
truths " ; " those who are in dead worship, or in worship 
which is without the good of charity and without the 
truths of faith," yet among whom " are some who have 
life in their worship, " (see A. K, 112, 163, % '5, % 227, 
'33.) 

In one of the paragraphs here referred to (227), we 
are told that " the greater part " of those who profess 
the doctrine of faith alone, " believe no otherwise than 
that faith alone is to think concerning God and salva- 
tion, and how they ought to live; and that justification 
is to live before God." And it is further added, that 
" there are very few " among those who profess faith 
alone, who live from or in accordance with that doc- 
trine. 

And so we find in these " seven churches " in Asia 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 179 

(according to Swedenborg's unfolding of the internal 
sense) persons professing various errors of doctrine, and 
some professing errors of the most pernicious character 
— errors which have contributed more than all others 
to darken and destroy the first Christian church. Yet, 
spite of their errors of doctrine, many of these people 
have within them some portion of the Lord's own spirit 
and life, and therefore belong to his New Church. 
Their states are various as are the doctrines they pro- 
fess, giving rise, therefore, to a corresponding variety in 
the New Church ; for " the universal New Church is de- 
scribed, as to its various particulars, by these seven 
churches." 

Nor is this the only passage in which Swedenborg has 
declared that those who are in ignorance of the truth, 
or who profess great errors, and yet live the life of 
charity, constitute a portion of the New Jerusalem. In 
the seventh chapter of the Apocalypse, mention is made 
of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and the 
number sealed out of each tribe. And we are told that 
these twelve tribes signify all those who " constitute the 
Lord's internal Church " ; also that they mean those " of 
the New Christian Heaven and the New Church, who 
will be in truths of doctrine derived from the good of 
love through the Word from the Lord." These, then, 
constitute the internal of the New Church. 

But every church must have an external as well as an 
internal; and these cohere together, and form, not two 
churches but one church. The external is not a different 
or a separate church from the internal, but is only a 
portion of one and the same church — yet a necessary 
portion, and one, without which it would not be a 



180 THE NEW CHURCH. 

church. " A church/' says Swedenborg, " in order to 
be a church, must be internal and external. . . . Where 
the interna] church is, the external must be also, for the 
internal of the church cannot be separated from its 
external; and also where the external church is, the 
internal must be also." — {A. C, 6587.) This is plain 
enough. And being told what class of persons consti- 
tute the internal of the New Church — viz., all who are 
" in truths of doctrine derived from the good of love 
through the Word from the Lord" — it is proper to 
inquire who constitute its external ; for these, be it re- 
membered, are none the less a part, and a necessary 
part, of the New Church. They belong to this church 
just as truly as do those who are in more interior 
states. 

Who, then, make the external of this New Heaven 
and New Church? Swedenborg has answered this 
question in language that cannot be misunderstood. 
The seer of Patmos, after reciting the number sealed 
out of each of the twelve tribes, proceeds (ch. vii., v. 
9): "After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, 
which no man could number," etc. — which language 
as expounded by the great seer, " signifies all the rest 
who are- not among the above recited, and yet are in the 
Lord's New Heaven and New Church, being those who 
compose the ultimate heaven and the external church, 
whose character no one knows but the Lord alone." — 
(A. R., 363.) 

And in the Apocalypse explained, the character of 
this " great multitude " is described in a general way . 
It, includes, we are told, " all those who are in the good 
of life according to their religion, in which there are 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 181 

not genuine truths ; " while the twelve thousand sealed 
out of every tribe, and who constitute the internal of 
the New Church, denote "those who are of the church 
in which there are genuine truths." 

We are further told that the portion of this " great 
multitude" denoted by "people, and tongues," signifies 
" all who are in falsities from ignorance, and from vari- 
ous religions ; ... in the present case, those who are in 
falsities of doctrine from ignorance ; . . . for what is 
false is not imputed to any one who lives well accord- 
ing to the dogmas of his religion, inasmuch as it is not 
the fault of such an one if he does not know truths." — 
(A. K, 452, '5.) 

Now the important fact, and one to which I would 
call special attention, is this : that a large class of 
people, who, according to Swedenborg, belong to the 
Lord's New Church (for those who constitute the external 
of this church, are "numerous " — A. C, 6587), are " in 
falsities of doctrine from ignorance," but at the same 
time " are in the good of life." And who are those 
good people who are in falsities of doctrine, and where 
are they? Swedenborg says they are "in the Lord's 
New Church" though they compose the external of this 
church. But are they in the organized or nominal New 
Church ? Are they all Swedenborgians ? Surely not, 
unless you admit that Swedenborgians are " in falsities 
of doctrine from ignorance." And the question would 
even then arise, Where is that " great multitude," or 
that " numerous " class of persons who constitute the 
external of the New Church ? Are they to be found in 
our New Church organizations ? If not, where then ? 
Can there be any doubt that the larger portion of them 
16 



182 THE NEW CHURCH. 

are to be found in the various Christian organizations 
which embrace a multitude of pious and excellent 
people, though in falsities of doctrine from ignorance 
or from erroneous instruction. 

Other passages might be adduced from Swedenborg, 
in harmony with those already cited. But it seems 
unnecessary. If the inference drawn from those re- 
ferred to, is to be set aside or questioned, I doubt 
whether the multiplication of extracts or references 
would serve any valuable purpose. 

DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW 
ORGANIZATIONS. 

But a separate church organization, it is said, based 
on the doctrines taught by Swedenborg, is in some cases 
unavoidable. Perhaps so. But may we not have a 
separate organization based upon the new doctrines, 
without, at the same time, unchurching other Christians, 
or claiming that we alone are the Lord's true church 
to the exclusion of all others? May we not have a 
separate church organization, without including within 
it all the Lord's people, or without assuming to be the 
Apocalyptic New Jerusalem? Nay, how are we to 
guard against the ingress into the new organization of 
some who are not the Lord's people, unless we are able 
to penetrate the inmost recesses of the heart ? 

The only visible distinction that we are able to rec- 
ognize between the Old and the New, viewed as sepa- 
rate church organizations, is the distinction based solely 
upon doctrines ; and this we do recognize. What else 
but doctrines distinguish our communion from others 
that bear the Christian name ? An ecclesiastical organi- 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 183 

zation, therefore, which is distinguished from others 
solely by its doctrines, is not necessarily and on account 
of its purer doctrine, more self-denying and righteous, 
or nearer to the Lord than those others. For we are 
expressly taught that " doctrinals alone do not serve to 
distinguish churches before the Lord." — (A. C, 1799.) 
And that this distinction of names among Christians, 
arising solely from doctrinals, " would never have taken 
place if the members of the church had made love to 
the Lord and charity toward their neighbor the prin- 
cipal article of faith." — (Ibid.) It would seem, then, 
not to be in accordance with the spirit or teachings of 
the New Jerusalem, to seek to perpetuate a distinction 
among churches such as the Lord does not recognize. 

Setting aside, then, all merely outward, doctrinal or 
nominal distinctions, we affirm that the New and the 
Old have been intermingled here on earth ever since 
the time of the Last Judgment. Neither is to be found 
pure among any body of people at the present day. 
The New is everywhere interpenetrating, modifying, 
reforming and vitalizing the Old. It reveals itself in 
the new spirit and life as well as in the new and higher 
truths which are continually flowing into the literature 
of our times — into science, into art, into politics, into 
all social, industrial, educational, philanthropic, and re- 
ligious institutions. Slowly, but surely, the Lord is 
fulfilling that great prediction, "Behold I make all 
things new." 

NON-SECESSION IN SWEDEN. 

Look at Sweden. Hear what an intelligent citizen 
of that country and devoted student of Swedenborg 



184 THE NEW CHURCH. 

(Mr. Kahl) says of the manner in which the New 
Church is descending there : 

" As Swedenborg did not separate himself from the 
Swedish national church, his admirers and friends after 
him in his country have also, even to our days, embraced 
the principle of non-secession, and rested tranquil in 
the external position of the Old Church, respecting its 
order as the basis of religious fellowship. Their prin- 
cipal and almost only endeavor has been to examine, 
amend and improve the internal and essential parts of 
the church, the articles of faith and the moral doc- 
trines." 

And what has been the result? Let this Swedish 
brother himself answer : 

" To high and low, at the Court, in the universities, 
and almost throughout the whole country they [i. e., 
Swedenborg's writings] have in a friendly manner been 
introduced." "Thus we find a number of persons in 
all classes of the people, among peasants, tradesmen, 
clergymen, noblemen, even princes and kings, who have 
read and admired Swedenborg's theological works." 
" Almost every year, some little book at least of this 
good stamp [defending the doctrines of the New Jeru- 
salem] has appeared in the book trade. It seems as if 
the old symbolico-Lutheran anathemas have forever 
been silenced. A milder genius has from day to day 
begun to prevail in our national church. Even the 
orthodox, so zealous before, have been more favorably 
affected toward the New Jerusalem and its heavenly 
doctrine. . . . They now regard the friends of Sweden- 
borg rather as confederates or allies than as antagonists, 
and suffer them, uncensured and unreproached, to write 
and preach according to their conscience." 

And the doctrinal tenets of the national church have 
been greatly modified. 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 185 

" For this alteration in theological sentiments," con- 
tinues our brother, " our thanks are due to the Divine 
Providence. It is, no doubt, a very good omen. It 
proves that a new religious age is about to begin even 
in Sweden." [About to begin ! Does it not prove that 
a new religious age has already begun there ?] " The 
more enlightened among our theologians do not preach 
a heartless and dead. dogmatism, or ' faith alone.' On 
the contrary, they agree with Swedenborg, that love to 
the Lord, and charity toward our neighbor, are the 
essentials on ' which hangs all the law, and concerning 
which all the prophets speak/ They appear to have 
read and laid very much to their hearts the instruction 
of our great author in Arcana Ccelestia, section 1799, 
which teaches the supreme importance of charity, and 
inculcates the broadest Christian catholicity." — {Letter 
in the London Intellectual Repository for Aug., 1862.) 

Such are some of the results of " the principle of non- 
secession " from the Swedish national church, early em- 
braced by the readers of Swedenborg in that kingdom. 
And what happier consequences have resulted from the 
opposite principle in other countries ? There is more 
of the professed or nominal New Church — vastly more 
New Church societies — in England or America than in 
Sweden. But can we say with equal confidence that 
there is more of the Neiv Church f Taking the above 
statements of our Swedish friend as a basis of calcula- 
tion, is it fair to conclude that there is in Sweden less 
knowledge or belief of the heavenly doctrines, less of 
heaven-born charity, less of the sweet and catholic spirit 
of the New Jerusalem, than in England or America, in 
proportion to population ? The evidence, we submit, 
is clearly the other way. We believe that the light and 
warmth of the New Jerusalem are to day being diffused 
16* 



186 THE NEW CHURCH. 

more widely throughout the kingdom of Sweden, than 
in either of those other countries — and this, too, chiefly 
because .of " the principle of non-secession/' referred to. 
We believe that the New Church is descending more 
rapidly, and that there is now more of it in proportion 
to population, in Sweden than in either England or 
America. 

MR. CLOWES 1 IDEA OF THE NEW CHURCH. 

And the course of non-separatism which seems to have 
been attended with such happy results in Sweden, and 
which, (as we have already shown,) the great seer him- 
self so unmistakably enjoined, by example as well as 
by the general tenor of his teachings, is the very course 
pursued and earnestly advocated by that most estimable 
and saintly man, Rev. John Clowes, who was cotempo- 
rary with Mr. Hindmarsh but strongly opposed to his 
theory of the New Jerusalem and his attempt to organ- 
ize it, or to present it " in its ultimate or external form." 
Mr. Clowes always retained his connection with the 
Episcopal church, and publicly proclaimed to a large 
and admiring congregation in Manchester for more 
than fifty years the truths taught by Swedenborg. Dur- 
ing that period he did more towards disseminating these 
truths than has ever been done by any other man ; and 
certainly no one ever had a clearer understanding of 
them, or presented in his own life and character a more 
striking exemplification of their sweet and heavenly 
spirit. Rev. s Mr. Noble, who knew him well, calls him 
" the principal instrument " in diffusing the truths of 
the New Church throughout the kingdom of Great 
Britain ; and says : 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 187 

" In Mr. Clowes Swedenborg found a genuine 
' brother/ — a kindred spirit, eminently qualified as 
another Aaron to be his ' spokesman unto the people.' 
This character he sustained not only by the translation 
of his works from Latin into English — but by a talent 
for bringing down the interior truths which they con- 
tain to the comprehension of the most simple and com- 
mon understanding, and presenting them in the most 
engaging form, even to the adapting of them for the in- 
struction of children. . . . No wonder, then, if one who 
was to be the instrument of such extensive usefulness, 
was called to the work by as special a divine interpo- 
sition as was vouchsafed to Swedenborg himself." 

And this good man spent his life in teaching the pre- 
cious truths of the New Church, or the genuine truths of 
the Christian religion. And no one has ever taught them 
with more eminent success. But so far was he from 
desiring to establish a new external organization, — so 
far from believing that any new visible body was, or 
could be made, identical with the Apocalyptic New Je- 
rusalem, he steadfastly set his face against this idea. 
He not only remained in the Episcopal Church for more 
than fifty years after his acceptance of the new truths 
— meanwhile approving himself all the more devoted, 
efficient and useful as a minister of Christ on account 
of the new light he had received — but he earnestly ad- 
vised others to do the same. He did not believe in an 
abrupt separation from the communion of other Chris- 
tians. He regarded such separation as wholly unau- 
thorized — as fraught with danger and mischief — as 
originating in a sectarian spirit, and tending to foster 
the evil of sectarianism. He therefore spoke against it, 
wrote against it and acted against it till the day of his 
death. Nor do we believe he is any the less opposed 



188 THE NEW CHURCH. 

to it now, albeit for many years breathing the sweet air 
and enjoying the serene light of the celestial realms. 

In 1792 Mr. Clowes published an address on this sub- 
ject, under the following title : " An Address from the 
translator to the readers of the theological writings of 
Emanuel Swedenborg, intended to point out the general 
design and tendency of those writings, and particularly 
to show that they do not authorize the readers in a sepa- 
ration, at this time, from external communion with other 
professing Christians." And after remarking upon some 
of the dangers to be apprehended from such separation, 
he adds — and in view of what has since transpired, his 
words sound like the words of a gifted prophet : — 

" Would the compass of this address permit, I could 
here point out some other dangers to be apprehended 
by the New Church from a sudden separation from ex- 
ternal communion with other professing Christians, such 
as particularly the danger of falling into a sectarian 
spirit, and thereby despising or thinking lightly of all 
others, who are not worshipping God according to cer- 
tain forms expressed in a peculiar language. But I 
trust that what hath been already said, will be sufficient 
to convince every candid reader of the writings of 
Emanuel Swedenborg, that such separation is neither 
prudent nor expedient at this time, whilst the New 
Church is in its present infant state, nor yet agreeable 
to the sentiments of our enlightened author." 

In this Address, also, Mr. Clowes gives us his idea 
of the nature and whereabout of the New Church. He 

says: 

" It is a church not to be limited by any external 
forms or ceremonies of worship, neither to be pointed 
out by a lo ! here, or a lo ! there, but universal as the 
reception of heavenly truth and obedience to its die- 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 189 

tates, consisting of the upright and sincere in heart 
amongst all people, nations, and languages, and form- 
ing one grand body or kingdom here on earth, whereof 
the Lord Jesus Christ is the soul or head, and of 
which all are living members, who worship Him in 
spirit and in truth. 

" Woe be to those, who would endeavor to confine this 
blessed tabernacle and temple of the Most High and 
Holy One, within any pale of their own framing, under 
the delusive imagination that any mere opinion, specu- 
lation, doctrine, form or ceremony whatsoever, can of 
themselves constitute that spiritual building, in which 
the almighty and eternal Jehovah Jesus dwells, with 
all the blessings of his parental love, and the powers of 
his salvation ! Whereas it must be very plain to every 
attentive reader, both of the Sacred Scriptures and of 
the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, that the church 
of Christ consists solely of the humble, the upright and 
the obedient, agreeable to those words of the Lord, 
1 My mother and my brethren are these, which hear the 
Word of God, and do it.' (Luke viii. 21) ; and in an- 
other place, 'My sheep hear my voice ' (John x. 27) ; 
where to hear is to obey." 

And in another of his works, this wise and saintly man 
tells us what the New Church is and what it is not, ac- 
cording to the best of his judgment. And if purity of 
heart and life contributes to clearness and strength of 
mental vision, we know of no one whose judgment in 
such a matter is more worthy of confidence than his. 

" I apprehend that by the term New Church, is not 
meant a mere new Sect, or particular denomination of 
Christians, as Quakers, Moravians, Methodists, and the 
like ; but that it denotes a Dispensation of universal 
grace, mercy, and truth, to the whole human race, 
without exception or limitation of time, place or sect." 
— {Dialogues between Sophron and Philadelphus.) 



190 THE NEW CHURCH. 

" [Under the New Jerusalem Dispensation] men will 
no longer judge one another as to the mere externals 
of church communion, be they perfect or be they 
imperfect ; for they will be taught that, whosoever ac- 
knowledges the incarnate Jehovah in heart and life, 
departing from all evil, and doing what is right and 
good according to the commandments, he is a member 
of the New Jerusalem, a living stone in the Lord's new 
Temple, and a part of that great family in heaven and 
earth, whose common Father and Head is Jesus Christ. 
Every one, therefore, will call his neighbor Brother, in 
whom he observes this spirit of pure charity ; and he 
will ask no questions concerning the form of words 
which compose his creed, but will be satisfied with ob- 
serving in him the purity and power of a heavenly 
life." — {Ibid.) 

Such was Mr. Clowes' idea of where and what the 
New Church is. So sound and sensible was he in his 
interpretation of Swedenborg, so eminently catholic 
and Christian in all his views and feelings. And there 
is reason to believe that no man was ever more thor- 
oughly imbued with the spirit of the New Church than 
he, or better qualified to give us the true meaning of 
the writings of its illustrious herald. The Manchester 
Courier, in its obituary notice of him, only gave expres- 
sion to the general estimate of his character among the 
thousands who had known him long and intimately, 
when it said : 

" In recording the excellence of this venerable man 
and truly apostolic minister, it may be allowed to mark, 
as prominent features of a character in which all was 
lovely, his child-like simplicity, his singleness of heart, 
the elevation of his devotion, the cheerfulness of his 
piety, the beauty of his holiness, the charity of his zeal, 
his bright imagination, his lively fancy, the ease of his 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 191 

seriousness, the innocence of his mirth, the purity of 
his exuberant joy. 

" He was admirable in all the faculties and powers 
of an enlightened mind ; but the charm by which he 
won and ruled the hearts of all, was that grace in man 
which is the nearest image on earth of a holy and 
merciful God, — the boundless benevolence of a truly 
catholic spirit." 

MR. PARSONS' IDEA OF THE NEW CHURCH. 

Then it is worthy of remark in this connection, and a 
fact of some significance as well as of interest to all liberal 
and progressive minds, that Mr. Clowes' idea of the 
New Church, which, as the reader will readily perceive, 
is identical with Swedenborg's, and the same as that 
advocated in these pages, is coming to be embraced and 
openly avowed by some of the best thinkers and ablest 
writers even in what claims to be the organized New 
Jerusalem in the United States. To cite the most re- 
cent and conspicuous example confirmatory of this: 

The Hon. Theophilus Parsons — himself a member 
of the General Convention — who has for thirty years 
or more occupied a foremost rank among American 
Swedenborgian thinkers and writers, in his late and ad- 
mirable work on " the Religion and Philosophy of Swe- 
denborg," takes occasion, in his concluding chapter, to 
discuss the question of what some consider " the slow 
growth of the New Church " ; and he says : 

" How happens it that the growth of this church has 
been and is so slow, if its doctrines are all that we who 
hold them suppose them to be ? 

" There are many answers to this question. One 
among them is, that its growth has been greater than is 



192 THE NEW CHURCH. 

apparent. It is not a sect. Its faith does not consist 
of a few specific tenets, easily stated and easily received. 
It is a new way of thinking about God and man, this 
life and another, and every topic connected with these. 
And this new way of thinking has made and is making 
what may well be called great progress. It may be. 
discerned everywhere, in the science, literature, phi- 
losophy, and theology of the times ; not prevalent in 
any of them, but existing, and cognizable by all who 
are able to appreciate these new truths with their bear- 
ings and results. If we hold that the spiritual world is 
the world of causes, and this world the world of effects, 
then we must hold that the New-Church will be an 
effect of influences which come, as the New Jerusalem 
is said by John to come, ' from God out of heaven.' 

" These influences are constantly at work to promote 
the establishment of this New-Church upon earth. Not 
suddenly, not violently, for the Lord is infinitely pa- 
tient ; but slowly, step by step, and only in such wise 
as is compatible with that spiritual freedom of mankind 
which is never violated. 

" Let it not be supposed that by the New-Church is 
meant the organized societies calling themselves by that 
name." 



Then — after referring to what Swedenborg calls 
" the three essentials of the church, an acknowledgment 
of the Lord's Divinity, an acknowledgment of the holi- 
ness of the Word, and the life which is called-- charity," 
which three, rightly interpreted, resolve themselves into 
the one great doctrine of love to the Lord and charity 
toward the neighbor; and concerning the importance 
of which, the same enlightened author remarks : " If 
these three had been held as the essentials of the church, 
intellectual differences would not have divided but only 
varied it, as light varies colors in beautiful objects, and 



WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? 193 

as various gems add beauty to the crown of a king " — 
Mr, Parsons proceeds : 

"Where these are, there is the church. Whoever 
holds these essentials in faith and life is a member of 
the New-Church, whatever may be his theological name 
or place. Only in the degree in which he so holds these 
essentials, is any one a member of that church. Those 
who, holding or desiring to hold these essentials in faith 
and life, unite and organize that they may be assisted 
and may assist each other in so holding them, constitute 
the visible [or part of the visible] or professed New- 
Church. But very false would they be to its doctrines, 
if they supposed themselves to be exclusively members 
of that Church, or if they founded their membership 
upon their profession or external organization. For 
there is no other true foundation for this membership 
than every man's own internal reception of the essen- 
tials of the church, and his leading the life which its 
truths require." — p. 301-303. 

Need we pursue the subject further? The question, 
Where and what is the New Church ? has now been 
answered, I trust, with sufficient fulness, and in a man- 
ner, I hope, satisfactory to all candid minds. It re- 
mains for us to show more particularly in what the 
newness of this Church consists ; and this we shall aim 
to do in the next succeeding chapter. 
17 N 



V. 

THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH. 

DURING those fearful persecutions under the reign 
of the emperor Domitian, near the close of the 
first century, when no cause was less popular than the 
cause of Christ, and no kingdom seemed weaker or less 
likely ever to triumph than his, the disciple whom 
Jesus loved — he who had been nearest to and most 
intimate with the Divine Master, and had imbibed his 
spirit in largest measure — he, the beloved John, far 
advanced in years, is banished by order of the emperor 
to a little island in the iEgean sea. There, in Patmos, 
a convict and an outcast, the victim of imperial malice 
and the object of imperial scorn, he has grand and 
heavenly visions. The senses of his spirit are opened ; 
and scenes and objects above nature, of transcendent 
grandeur and deep significance, are then and there dis- 
closed to him. The veil is lifted, and light from the 
celestial realms streams in upon him. The state of the 
church as it would be in the then distant future, is shown 
him pictorially. Its consummation is foreseen, when 
darkness hangs over the world like night. To his 
couched eye the sun becomes black as sackcloth of 
hair, and the moon as blood, and the stars of heaven 
fall to the earth. And then, as the closing scene in 
this magnificent drama, he sees a new heaven and a 
new earth, and a city of stupendous proportions " de- 

194 



IN WHAT CONSISTS THE NEWNESS? 195 

scending out of heaven from God, having the glory of 
God." 

And as the central figure and the object of supreme 
interest in this splendid panorama, the prophet sees " one 
like unto the Son of Man " — his well remembered Lord 
and Master : not, however, as when He trod the plains 
of Galilee, but transfigured, glorified, radiant, beaming 
with an inexpressible brightness. " His countenance 
was as the sun shineth in his strength." 

How significant, too, the positions in which he beheld 
Him ! At first, in the midst of the seven golden candle- 
sticks ; and by this was represented the great truth that 
He is the Enlightener of all minds, the central Lumi- 
nary in all the churches. Afterwards he sees Him 
seated on a throne, and surrounded by myriads of ador- 
ing angels who sing with a loud voice "Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and 
wisdom and strength and honor and glory and bless- 
ing ;" and by this was represented that other truth, 
that in the church of the future typified and fore- 
shadowed by the city New Jerusalem, Christians will 
acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ alone as King and 
Judge and Lawgiver of the moral universe ; that around 
Him as the one living Centre, all faithful souls will 
cluster and revolve, and to Him will be ascribed the 
supreme homage of their hearts. 

And what was typified by the new heaven and the 
new earth which the seer beheld, when the former heaven 
and the former earth had passed away ? 

No material orbs are here referred to, as Christians 
have been in the habit of supposing ; for the Scripture 
in its true sense treats of things and beings belonging 



] 96 THE NEW CHURCH. 

to the supersensual realm. The former heaven was 
that imaginary Christian heaven formed in the world 
of spirits from the time of the Lord's advent to the 
year 1757. We call it an imaginary heaven, because 
it was not a true and real heaven — was not founded 
on any enduring basis of inward or God-like character. 
It was a heaven merely on the outside. Most of its 
denizens were internally evil. But because they were 
good and pious outwardly, they all imagined themselves 
in heaven. And the former earth was the first Chris- 
tian church which was in sympathy and fellowship with 
that imaginary heaven — was one with it in spirit and 
in belief. 

And because that heaven was not a real heaven, nor 
that church a true church, therefore they were both 
destined to pass away. This was in the order of Divine 
Providence. Both did pass away at the time of the 
Last Judgment (1757). And a New Heaven of angels 
was then formed, and a New Church on earth then com- 
menced. 



IN WHAT DOES THE NEWNESS CONSIST? 

But what are we to understand by a New Church ? 
Not simply a new ecclesiastical organization, with new 
doctrines, a new ritual and a new ministry; but some- 
thing vastly more comprehensive than this. We are to 
understand a New Age or Dispensation ; that is, an Age 
characterized by new thoughts, swayed by new motives, 
burning with new desires, animated with new hopes, 
inspired with new ambitions, kindled with new freedom, 
governed by new principles, baptized with a new spirit. 



IN WHAT CONSISTS THE NEWNESS? 197 

In short, we are to understand a new condition of our 
terrestrial humanity, a new state of thought and feeling 
and life and action. 

Such is the real meaning of the new heaven and the 
new earth which the seer beheld in vision coming to 
take the place of the former ones which were seen to 
pass away. The vision was prophetic. And it began 
to receive its fulfilment one hundred and nineteen years 
ago, when the former heaven passed away. Then, also, 
the first Christian Age or Dispensation was consum- 
mated. It had lived out its destined term. It had ac- 
complished its mission. It had come to its end. And 
so the former earth passed away ; and a new earth (i. e. 
a new Church) commenced. 

And in this Church, according to divine prophecy, 
everything was to be renovated. " Behold I make all 
things new," is the proclamation that came from Him 
whom the seer beheld seated on the throne. 

At the time of the Last Judgment the Christian 
Church was immersed in spiritual darkness. Its ac- 
cepted doctrines w r ere false. Its philosophy was sensu- 
ous and material. Its spirit was not that of the Master 
whom it professed to follow. Its life was not the life 
of heaven. Its charity was spurious. Its liberty was 
— a mockery. Freedom of thought in religious mat- 
ters was unknown to the multitude. All the essential 
things of a true church were wanting, or very different 
from what the Lord "desired they should be; for they 
were contrary to the spirit and true meaning of his 
Word, contrary to the laws of his unselfish love. They 
were anti-Christian — the opposite of what they w T ere 
supposed to be. Therefore they all needed to be changed. 
17* 



198 THE NEW CHURCH. 

And it was intended that they should be changed at 
the Lord's second coming. His coming, indeed, in- 
volved and necessitated their change, just as the rising 
of a new day involves the dispersion of the shades of 
night. Not that these things were to be made new all 
at once; for no radical change in the church or in 
human character is ever wrought suddenly. 

And as all subordinate but auxiliary human interests 
— all civil government, social order, educational methods 
and industrial processes, are but the normal outbirths 
of the more interior states of the church, therefore 
these also must be made new as fast as the new truths 
and the new spirit descending out of heaven from God, 
shall be received into the minds of men. 

The second coming of the Lord is to be understood 
as a spiritual coming. It is the advent of new and 
higher truth, for He is " the Truth ; " the opening 
and revealing of the spiritual which is the true sense of 
the Word ; the coming, therefore, of this sense to the 
understandings and hearts of men, through the ob- 
scuring mists or " upon the clouds " of the letter. And 
whoever witnesses or experiences in himself this advent 
of the true and living Word, knows that it is, indeed, 
as predicted, " with power and great glory." 

NEWNESS IN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 

And the first thing made " new " by this coming, is 
the doctrine concerning the Lord himself. In the new 
revelation He is presented as a Being altogether lovely; 
as a Being divinely human, yet without the least trace 
of human infirmity ; a perfect Divine Man ; endowed 



IN WHAT CONSISTS THE NEWNESS? 199 

with " all power " on earth and in heaven ; sympathiz- 
ing with us in our sorrows, commiserating our weak- 
nesses, strengthening and encouraging every good en- 
deavor, and continually striving to deliver us from the 
bondage of evil and falsity ; not as three Persons, but 
one, and that the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

This new doctrine, the doctrine of the Divine Hu- 
manity, is to the new theological system, what the sun 
is to our planetary system. It is the great central doc- 
trine. It irradiates and unitizes and vitalizes all the 
rest. Instead of three centres of thought and affection, 
it offers to the believer one only centre, Christ. It pre- 
sents Him as the central light and life of the church, 
the manifested Jehovah, " God with us." 

And this new doctrine of the Lord which, rightly in- 
terpreted, is the doctrine of heavenly life, could not fail 
to produce a new system of theology. This was a logical 
necessity. It could not fail to modify or make new all 
the other doctrines of the church. And so, indeed, it 
has. In the doctrines revealed through Swedenborg, 
which all radiate from and beautifully cohere with this 
central doctrine, we are presented with a new view of 
the Sacred Scripture ; a new view of redemption ; a new 
view of the nature and way of salvation ; a new view 
of the trinity, atonement, and regeneration ; a new view 
of life and death ; a new view of clxarity and faith ; a 
new view of heaven and hell ; a new view of the resur- 
rection and life beyond the grave. 

And these new views clearly set forth in the revela- 
tions referred to, are now seen to be gradually working 
their way into all the best literature of our times, and 
some of them into nearly all the churches : agreeably 



200 THE NEW CHURCH. 

to the divine prediction : " For as the lightning cometh 
out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall 
also the coming of the Son of Man be " — a prophecy 
which clearly points to a general enlightenment of the 
human race. 

And has not this enlightenment been actually going 
on — rapidly, since 1757? Do not people think very, 
differently on religious subjects nowadays, from what 
they did a hundred years ago ? True, the creeds have 
undergone but little change ; and to outward appear- 
ance the churches remain about as they were. But in- 
wardly they are different. Inwardly they have all been 
touched by the light of the New Morning They have 
all felt the transforming power of the New Dispensa- 
tion. They are all receiving some measure of the new 
light and life. And thus they are all being gradually 
made new. 

How few intelligent Christians nowadays entertain 
the same views on theological and religious questions, 
that were generally accepted a hundred years ago ! 
How few now really expect to be saved by faith alone ! 
All are coming to regard righteousness of life as indis- 
pensable. How few believe the old dogmas of infant 
damnation, imputed righteousness, unconditional elec- 
tion and reprobation, or a hell of literal fire and brim- 
stone, such as was preached and generally believed a 
century ago ! These dogmas may still be found in the 
creeds. But they are not among men's real beliefs; 
certainly not among their deep convictions as they once 
were. So surely has come to pass, and so obvious is its 
fulfilment even to the most casual observer, what the 
herald of the New Church wrote more than a hundred 
years ago : 



IN WHAT CONSISTS THE NEWNESS? 201 

" Hereafter, the church will be similar, indeed, in 
the outward form, but dissimilar in the inward." And 
he tells us why: "For henceforth the man of the 
church will be in a more free state of thinking on mat- 
ters of faith, because spiritual liberty has been restored 
to him." 

Yes — spiritual liberty; entire freedom of thought 
on all doctrinal and religious subjects, which is one of 
the benign effects of the Last Judgment, this is the rea- 
son for the changed and continually changing beliefs 
of men in nearly all the churches. 

However the written creeds, then, may remain unal- 
tered, the real beliefs of Christians are not what they 
were prior to the memorable year 1757. With multi- 
tudes they are altogether different. New and more 
rational views on religious subjects are everywhere being 
accepted. And so we find that, in respect to the doc- 
trinal beliefs of the churches, the Lord is gradually 
making " all things new." 

NEWNESS OF SPIRIT. 

And the churches are being made new in spirit not 
less than in doctrine. In most of the denominations, 
no matter what their accepted creed, the old, hard, ex- 
clusive, sectarian, intolerant spirit is perceptibly dying 
out. It is everywhere condemned as a spirit that comes 
from beneath — as the spirit of anti-Christ ; and a far 
different spirit is beginning to take its place — a spirit 
more mild, tolerant, charitable and just, more akin to 
that which reigns in heaven. Not that persecution for 
opinion has altogether ceased in the churches ; I do not 
say nor mean that. But I do mean and say that the 



202 THE NEW CHURCH, 

persecutors are not now, as they were once, among the 
influential classes, but among those least respected. 
The best minds are everywhere coming to see, and prac- 
tically to acknowledge, that unity of spirit is compat- 
ible with considerable diversity of belief; and that per- 
fect agreement in all the minutise of religious thought 
or doctrinal statement, is neither to be expected nor 
desired. 

And so we find that, along with the new ideas or 
new intellectual convictions which thoughtful men and 
women in all the churches are gradually reaching, a 
new spirit is descending into the heart of humanity, 
softening, expanding, mellowing, sweetening, and grad- 
ually lifting it up to loftier and serener summits. It is 
the spirit of the Lord in his Divine Humanity; the 
spirit of Him whom the seer of Patmos beheld seated 
on the throne, and who is coming and proclaiming in 
the ears of the nations, with a voice louder than seven 
thunders, " Behold I make all things new ! " 

Manifestly, then, new views of religious truth and a 
new spirit and life are fast finding their way into all the 
churches ; and faster still, perhaps, into many outside 
of them all. And thus a new earth is being created 
through the instrumentality of the new angelic heaven. 

NEWNESS IN HUMAN AFFAIRS. 

And since religious truth is the highest truth, and 
religious life the highest life, it is evident that any 
change or newness in these, must shortly produce a cor- 
responding change in all subordinate human affairs ; 
just as any radical change in a man's convictions, feel- 



IN WHAT CONSISTS THE NEWNESS? 203 

ings and purposes, is sure to produce ere long a corre- 
sponding change in his outward conduct. 

And who, looking at the Christendom of a hundred 
years ago and the Christendom of to-day, cannot see 
that in all the less vital yet subsidiary human interests, 
stupendous changes have taken place and are still going 
on, which nothing less than some great change in the 
supersensual realm and a new dispensation of truth from 
heaven, can adequately account for ? Who cannot see 
that, during the last hundred years, the Lord has been 
making all things new in science, philosophy, literature, 
legislation, the mechanic arts, industrial processes, 
methods of education, modes of travel and transporta- 
tion, modes of communication between distant peopl s, 
in everything, indeed, which pertains to the welfare and 
progress of our race ? So plainly is the prophecy, " Be- 
hold I make all things new," receiving its fulfilment 
before the eyes of all mankind, that one would think 
even the dullest of apprehension could hardly fail to 
recognize the fact. 

Estimating the progress of the New Church by the 
popular standard, that is, by the numerical increase of 
those who accept its doctrines and acknowledge their 
belief in a New Dispensation, its growth has been ex- 
tremely slow. But estimating it by what we believe 
and have shown to be the true standard — by the ad- 
vance of the new ideas for which it stands, the spread 
of the new philosophy which it announces, and the 
growth of the new and more Christ-like spirit which 
constitutes its very essence and life, its progress has 
been truly astonishing. Measured by the popular 
standard whose fallacy has been demonstrated in these 



204 THE NEW OHURCH. 

pages, the New Church to-day is but a feeble and 
insignificant rill scarcely discernible among the great 
streams from the mountain. But measured by the true 
standard, it is seen to be a broad and mighty river 
" proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb ; " 
rolling on majestically through the world with steadily 
augmenting volume ; imparting freshness and verdure 
and bloom wherever it goes ; its banks on either side 
thickly covered with the tree of life whose " leaves are 
for the healing of the nations." 

How much better is it, then, to estimate the progress 
and present dimensions of the New Church by the high 
and true standard of measurement ! Better for those 
who openly acknowledge its doctrines, as well as for all 
others. It lifts up the "receivers" and enlarges their 
horizon. It brings new hope and strength and refresh- 
ment to thsir souls. It broadens their sympathies and 
fills them with a joyful sense of wider fellowship. It 
makes them feel that all good men and women of what- 
ever name or creed, are spiritually their kith and kin, 
heirs of the same heavenly inheritance, yea, members 
of the same church as themselves. 

Thus do we behold and welcome the New Jerusalem, 
not as a new ecclesiasticism — not as another added to 
the already numerous and conflicting sects — not as a 
new and sharply defined organization to which the 
arithmetic may be applied, and which may be pointed 
at with a " Lo, here ! " or a " Lo, there ! " but rather 
as the breaking of a New Day for humanity ; rather as 
a glad and glorious light which, coming out of the east, 
shineth even unto the west. Even " so," agreeably to 
divine promise, " shall the coming of the Son of Man be." 



VI. 

A PRACTICAL QUESTION, 

IN view of what has been said and shown, an impor- 
tant practical question arises, which is : What is to 
be done with the existing New Church organization ? 
Whatever may be said of the spirit or misconception 
in which it originated, of its needlessness, or its evident 
lack of justification from the teachings of the great 
seer, its existence is to be accepted as an undeniable 
fact. Because we are now able to see, from Sweden- 
borg's exposition of divine prophecy, that the separation 
begun nearly a hundred years ago, and continued up to 
the present time, was not a thing of divine order — that, 
on the contrary, it was the purpose of Divine Provi- 
dence that the New should remain with the Old "until 
it grows to its fulness " — shall the new organization be 
at once given up? Shall all existing New Church 
societies disband, and their members seek a home in 
other communions ? Is this the logical conclusion, or 
the only alternative ? 

By no means. The fact of a new organization must 
ibe accepted as a providential event, even though it be 
classed among events permitted. And it could not have 
been permitted but for some end of use. Besides, the 
mischief lies not so much in the fact of a separate or- 
ganization, as in its unauthorized and presumptuous 
claims. It is natural that those whose interpretation 
18 205 



206 THE NEW CHURCH. 

of the Christian religion is nearest alike, should be 
drawn together. It is natural, in the formation of 
societies for religious instruction and worship, that those 
•%of like views and feelings should gravitate toward each 
other. There is nothing wrong or objectionable in this, 
if it be not permitted to interfere with our usefulness. 
It is quite in accordance with the order of heaven where 
the great law of spiritual affinity is allowed complete 
sway. But when we not only separate from others, but 
claim to be more truly the children or church of God 
than they, and this merely on the ground of our beliefs, 
we assume towards them an offensive attitude. We 
break the laws and do violence to the spirit of Chris- 
tian charity. We sunder or weaken the bonds of 
brotherhood. We encourage and strengthen the spirit 
of sect. We offend and wound the Master whom we 
profess to honor. 

We would say, then : Let existing New Church 
societies, so-called — especially those that have attained 
to considerable maturity and strength — remain. Let 
them retain their organization. But let them as speedily 
as possible lay aside or overcome the hurtful spirit of 
sect. Let them dismiss all thought of anything like 
superiority to other Christians — all thought of being 
pre-eminently the church of the Lord. Let them cease 
to claim any special prerogatives, or to imagine that 
the Christian ordinances when administered by them- 
selves, possess any peculiar efficacy or validity. Let 
them acknowledge and treat as brethren all who pro- 
fess the Christian religion and exhibit anything of the 
spirit of the Divine Master, whatever their name or 
creed; and endeavor to enlarge their fellowship by 



A PRACTICAL QUESTION. 207 

bringing themselves as quickly and as far as practicable 
into fraternal relations with Christians of every denomi- 
nation. Let their ministers try to draw near to, and 
cultivate friendly and intimate relations with, all other 
ministers in their vicinity ; and invite an exchange of 
pulpits with all, and gladly accept it with such as are 
willing to exchange. Let their members cheerfully and 
actively cooperate with other Christians in the various 
benevolent and philanthropic enterprises of the day; 
and in their private intercourse, let them seek rather to 
exhibit and magnify the points of agreement than the 
points of difference between themselves and others. 
Let them, in these and other similar ways, seek to mani- 
fest the tolerant, catholic, kind and loving spirit of the 
New Jerusalem ; and while openly acknowledging and 
fearlessly defending, on all suitable occasions, the new 
truths which they have received, let them by all means 
avoid violent and irritating assaults — any hostile 
attacks, indeed — upon the beliefs of their Christian 
neighbors. 

Who cannot see that, if such a course were adopted 
and pursued by all existing New Church societies and 
their ministers, the present hostility of other churches 
toward the truths of the New Dispensation would shortly 
subside; and multitudes whose minds are now closed 
against them, would ere long come to rejoice in their 
glad and cheering light. Good men and women, hith- 
erto offended by our ecclesiastical pretensions, and re- 
pelled by our exclusive and sectarian spirit, would be so 
affected by the spirit and conduct here recommended, 
that it would indeed be strange if no desire should be 
enkindled in their breasts to look into, and understand 



208 THE NEW CHURCH. 

more about, the truths of the New Jerusalem. And 
so, by enlarging their fellowship and coming into more 
intimate and friendly relations with other Christians, 
these societies would largely increase their membership ; 
for their attractive and love-awakening power would be 
vastly augmented. 

But small and feeble New Church societies — num- 
bering from five to forty individuals, more or less (and 
there are many such scattered throughout the country 
at the present time) — what course shall they pursue ? 
It is difficult to give any general advice that would be 
applicable alike to all such. For the circumstances 
wiil be found to differ in almost every case. It may be 
advisable for many of these to keep up their organiza- 
tion, and hold public worship on Sundays, even if they 
are not yet able to maintain a minister. For if they 
pursue the course here recommended, they may safely 
count upon an increase in numbers and in strength. 

But in view of what has been said and shown, we 
submit that it would be perfectly right and proper for 
any such feeble societies to disband, and for the mem- 
bers to distribute themselves among the Christian de- 
nominations in their immediate neighborhood according 
to their tastes or inclinations. This would probably be 
the wiser and better course for many such societies. 
And in taking this step it would be natural and right 
that they should associate themselves with a society 
that would be most ready to fellowship them, and to 
concede to them all their Christian rights and privi- 
leges. Of course they should not deny any truth that 
they hold, nor seek to disguise their honest convictions. 
They should assert their right to read, lend, speak of, 



A PRACTICAL QUESTION. 209 

or quote from, the writings of Swedenborg, with the 
same freedom that they would those of Paul, Luther, 
Milton or Channing. But while doing this, they should 
be careful not to disregard the rights or feelings of 
their associates, — should never ridicule or assail their 
religious beliefs, and never offensively obtrude their 
own. If they join the church, or become teachers in the 
Sunday school, or take an active interest in any of the 
Society's work (and it would be wise and useful for 
them to do all this if allowed), they should not do so 
under any disguise, but with the distinct understanding 
and in the open acknowledgment of what their religious 
beliefs are. 

And there are not many churches at the present day 
that would not readily admit to full membership any 
reader or receiver of the teachings of Swedenborg, whose 
life was seen to be in accordance with what the heavenly 
doctrines teach. But even if they should not at once be 
received into membership, let them not be disturbed 
nor repelled. Let them show how meek and gentle and 
affectionate and sweet-tempered they can be under the 
refusal. Let them continue their social intercourse 
with the members, and by no means slacken but rather 
quicken their exertions in every good work which the 
Society undertakes. Let them exhibit more and more 
of the Divine Master's spirit ; and the chances are that 
they will in this way render a noble service to the cause 
they love. They will spread the truths of the New Je- 
rusalem faster and more effectually than they could in 
any other way. For letting these truths shine out in 
their daily lives and practice, others could not fail to 
see them nor to desire to know more about them. 
18* O 



210 THE NEW CHURCH. 

Prejudice against the heavenly doctrines, instead of 
being intensified as it has been hitherto by the theory 
and practice of the separatists, would be disarmed. 
Ministers would not be alarmed at the introduction of 
Swedenborg's writings among the people of their charge, 
when they saw that the perusal of these writings did 
not make their people worse but better Christians ; did 
not alienate the hearts of the readers from their breth- 
ren, nor tend to divide their flocks. On the contrary, 
seeing that the readers of these works are among the 
most faithful, devoted, sweet-tempered and charitable 
of their members, and that the reading of them tends 
in all cases to refine, spiritualize and improve the char- 
acter, it would indeed be strange if some desire to read 
them should not be enkindled in the ministers' own 
hearts. While the practice prevails — and is every- 
where encouraged by Swedenborgians — of withdrawing 
from the communion to which one belongs as soon as 
he becomes at all interested in the writings of Sweden- 
borg, what wonder that the ministers and people of 
other denominations should set their faces against these 
writings ? What wonder that they should speak against 
them ? — that they should regard them as mischievous 
and dangerous ? — that they should urge all whom they 
love, to shun them as they would poison ? — that they 
should look upon their introduction among them as a 
sad calamity, threatening strife, alienation and division 
among brethren ? 

All this is the normal result of the theory and prac- 
tice of separatism. Can we not see, therefore, how such 
theory and practice tend to strengthen existing preju- 
dices against the heavenly doctrines, and so to hinder 



A PRACTICAL QUESTION. 211 

their progress among men ? Our mistaken theory and 
practice obviously prevent the earth from " helping the 
woman " as it otherwise might. 

The theory of separatism has been faithfully tried 
for nearly a hundred years. Individuals have displayed 
rare devotion, and contributed liberally of their wealth 
to carry it out. No effort has been spared to build up 
a new and separate organization upon the basis of Swe- 
denborg's teachings. And what has been the result ? 
A new organization, known as "the New Church," 
exists both in this country and in England. But has 
its growth been healthy and prosperous, or are its pres- 
ent character, condition and prospects in either country 
encouraging? Do we find that union, harmony and 
love among the members of the organization, that vital 
and practical religion, that deep and unselfish devotion 
to every good work, that health and growth and manly 
vigor in its societies, which we might reasonably expect 
if the separate organization were an orderly and heaven- 
appointed thing? 

I will leave these questions for others to answer — 
merely remarking that, while the spread of the heavenly 
doctrines during the last decade has been exceptionally 
rapid, and while there are more interested readers of 
Swedenborg to-day than ever before, the increase of the 
organization during the same period has been slow and 
feeble ; and never, perhaps, was its condition so languid 
and discouraging as at the present time. It cannot 
with truth be said that the new organization has pros- 
pered, or that it is now in a prosperous or encouraging 
condition? Its spirit has been conspicuously narrow 
and sectarian, not the large, tolerant, free and loving 



212 TEE NEW CHURCH. 

spirit of the New Jerusalem. Will it ever be essen- 
tially different while its attitude and pretensions remain 
as at the present ? 

But the^New Jerusalem is descending from God out 
of heaven — never more plainly or rapidly than to-day. 
And it is the special mission of this Dispensation not 
only to enlighten the minds of men as to the meaning 
of God's Word, and to things pertaining to the soul's 
progress and highest welfare, but to uproot and destroy 
the mischievous spirit of sect ; to break down the high 
walls of partition among the followers of Christ, which 
have been reared upon the dogma of salvation by faith 
alone ; to develop the love element in the soul and in 
human society, and assert its supremacy over every 
other ; to reveal God as a tender and loving Father — 
nay, as Love itself, pure and perfect and unchangeable; 
to exalt charity above faith — life above doctrine — 
both inside and outside of all the churches ; and thus 
to make men one in the spirit and temper of their* 
minds, and show how they may live and act together 
like brethren, in unity, notwithstanding the diversity 
in their doctrinal beliefs. 

Arid everywhere we behold this new and benign in- 
fluence operating upon the minds and hearts of men. 
Everywhere the old bigotry is perceptibly dying out, 
and the old sectarianism is being condemned ; and a 
larger, freer and more Christ-like spirit is gradually 
taking their place. Everywhere we witness this new 
and second coming of the Lord, not merely in the dis- 
closures of new and higher truth concerning Himself 
and his kingdom, but conspicuously in the manifestation 
of a spirit more tolerant, free, fraternal and sweet — a 



A PRACTICAL QUESTION. 213 

spirit more akin to His own. As the author of that 
beautiful and majestic prose-poem, "The Heart of 
Christ," truly says : 

"The denominations are becoming more fully pos- 
sessed with the mind and spirit of Christ. If you doubt 
it compare the present century with the last, or com- 
pare the modern with the mediaeval ages as pertains to 
the golden fruits of a true faith, righteousness, charity, 
brotherhood, and universal love. The beatitudes of the 
Sermon on the Mount, the humanities of the Sermon on 
Mount Olivet, and the love that breathes through the 
Johannean discourses, never beat with more tender 
pulses than now, to move and inspire all the ecclesiasti- 
cisms of the Christian world. Worthier and lovelier 
views of the Divine character and attributes; zeal for 
Christ purged of all bitterness from the gall of the un- 
regenerate heart ; tolerance of error in opinion ; intoler- 
ance of wrong to any child of God, or of cruelty to any 
creature He has made ; better theories of human nature 
and destiny ; and better feelings of human fellowship 
that make §very man not only the image of God but 
the image of every other man, — these mark the ad- 
vent of Christ as John foresaw it — Christianity dis- 
placing at length the old Judaism and heathenism, as 
the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of 
heaven." 



THE END. 



PUBLICATIONS OF CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER. 

Letters on the Future Life. By B. F. Barrett. 12mo. 
Extra cloth, $1.00. 

"A small volume with a great deal in it." — The Golden Age: 

"Any one fond of such speculation will read this lively little book 
with interest ; for the presentation of the subject is animated and 
earnest." — New Haven Palladium. 

"No one of the many works in the same vein — some of which 
that are singularly able and lucid, have been prepared by Mr. Bar- 
rett — have more earnestness, practically applied, than this." — Phila- 
delphia North American. 

" A grand and impressive statement of the New Church doctrine 
of the Future Life, eminently calculated to enlighten and interest 
the general reader." - — New Church Independent. 



Letters on the Divine Trinity. By B. F. Barrett. 
New and enlarged edition. 12mo. Extra cloth, $1.00. 

A trenchant but friendly criticism of the popular doctrine of three 
Divine Persons in the one true God ; and presenting with great clear- 
ness and force the doctrine of the Trinity as taught by Emanuel 
Swedenborg, together with the Scriptural and rational evidence in 
its support. 

The New View of Hell ; Showing its Nature, Where- 
abouts, Duration, and How to escape it. By B. F. Bar- 
rett. 12mo. Extra cloth, $1.00. 

"A succinct and intelligible statement of Swedenborg 7 s doctrine 
of retribution. It contains . . . much that is profoundly true, and 
much that is exceedingly suggestive." — New York Independent. 

"A really valuable contribution to the world's stock of religious 
ideas. . . . And we commend it to our readers as worthy of attentive 
perusal." — New York Sum. 

"There is not a Christian man or woman in the world, who would 
not be benefited by the reading of this book." — Westfield News-Letter. 

" In ' The New View of Hell ' is put forth one of the most striking 
and pregnant of Swedenborg's thoughts — that, too, whose influence 
on orthodoxy has been most observable — his conception of Hell as 
a state, not a place ; and as such, the chosen home of all who go 
there." — New York Evening Mail. 



PUBLICATIONS OP CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFPELFINGER. 

Lectures on the New Dispensation, signified by the 
New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. By B. F. Barrett. 
12mo. Extra cloth, $1.25. 

The design of this volume is to unfold and elucidate the leading 
doctrines taught by Emanuel Swedenborg. And it is considered one 
of the best works for this purpose ever published. The London In- 
tellectual Repository calls it " an admirable work for making one 
acquainted with the doctrines of the New Church [as taught by 
Swedenborg]." 

The Golden City. By B. F. Barrett. 12mo, pp. 253. 
Extra cloth, $1.25. 

" The work will commend itself to liberal minds of every denomi- 
nation — for its spirit is catholic, its views comprehensive, and its 
temper sweet." — Boston Daily Advertiser. 

"According to Dr. Barrett, the true New Jerusalem, which is 
... a life of love and obedience, is steadily descending to the earth. 
It is found in all churches and outside of them all. It is shown in 
a new spirit of toleration and philanthropy, a perpetual breaking 
away from the bondage of the letter to the, love and service of the 
spirit, and a growing disposition towards a real union of all true 
souls on spiritual and practical ground." — New York Daily Graphic. 

"The most important book concerning the New Church which 
has been written for years. Its extensive circulation in and out of 
the external organization of the New Church would do very great 
good." — Boston New Church Magazine. 

" Mr. Barrett writes with great earnestness and with an evident 
familiarity with Swedenborg's writings, and . . . sets forth in brief 
space and with much clearness some much misunderstood facts with re- 
gard to the opinions of the Swedish seer." — Phila. Evening Telegraph. 

" The work is from the real New Church stand-point, able in exe- 
cution and catholic in spirit." — The Living Way. 

"This treatise is thoroughly liberal, and will undoubtedly con- 
tribute to popularizing and expanding a form of faith that has grown 
quietly without such a valuable help." — The North American and 
United States Gazette. 

" The volume is pervaded by a large, free, and truly catholic spirit, 
which is likely to render it acceptable to all who are striving for unity 
without uniformity among Christian believers." — Boston Evening 
Transcript. 



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